


Formative Shadows (Or: Even More Times Richie Said 'Fuck You')

by BoWritesShit



Series: Deer In Deadlights [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers, Alternate Timelines, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Horror, Canon-Typical Your Mom Jokes, Deadlights, Depersonalization, Drug Use, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It is funnier than it sounds, M/M, Medical Restraint Use, Mental Illness, Mental Torture, Mention of medical abuse, Mentions of Suicide, Multiple Pairings, Nightmares, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress, Psychosis, References to Domestic Violence, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Sleep Deprivation, Sleep disorders, Slow Burn, Stan the Man is around but maybe not super alive about it, Suicide Attempt, Time Shenanigans, Too many movie references to list, alcohol use, dark humour, descriptions of injuries, medical setting, munchausen's by proxy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:01:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 55,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21561889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoWritesShit/pseuds/BoWritesShit
Summary: This is a love story.I promise.A companion piece to 'Five Times Richie Said 'Fuck You' (And One Time He Didn't)'.It got out of hand.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Lots of Platonic Loser Dynamics, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Series: Deer In Deadlights [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553887
Comments: 349
Kudos: 257





	1. And This Part?

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the person who wanted to punch me in a Wendy's parking lot. That shit was funny.

* * *

_And this part?_

* * *

He held on because he had to.

He held on with shaking hands, with his fingers slipping in blood so many times that he was briefly certain it was how he would lose him, that it would be his blood or Eddie's blood that would transform the situation from a _near-miss_ to a _miss_ and he would think about that moment until he inevitably died from a mix of grief and liquor and a belt and a curtain rod in a cheap motel in Reno.

For a moment he was sure Eddie would slip from his hands and then the others would do what they had to do, they would do what they'd been _trying_ to do the whole way and drag him furious and screaming out of the guts of Derry before it could collapse on top of him and claim him as its last victim.

But it was only for a moment he thought it would happen, only for a moment because he knew differently, he knew it didn't happen this way. 

It couldn't happen this way.

He wouldn't let it happen this way

In some other universe, Eddie Kaspbrak died in a cold dark tomb and he'd seen it happen, and then afterwards he saw himself collapsing at the edge of the sinkhole that opened up to the very borders of the house on Neibolt, on his knees where the sidewalk transformed into a pit. Everyone's hands were gripping knowingly at his jacket, and at his shoulders, and at the back of his belt - and in one case in his hair but that was either an accident or Ben had a fetish - all of them keeping him from doing what they somehow collectively knew he was thinking about doing, dragging him back another foot while he screamed: _we can't leave him down there_. In that moment, he cracked open on the Derry tarmac like an egg fallen from a nest, spilling his bleeding contents onto the surface of the place he'd been born, grotesque and sad and half-formed with Bev beside him and her tender voice whispering again and again _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry Richie_ and Mike's stubble against his jaw, his cheek pressed close to his, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Richie, I'm sorry_ while they rocked him like a child.

But he'd seen it another way, too, and another after that, and after that, the deadlights tearing into him, coring him, then toying with what it took out of him, sticky sharp fingers carding through him like segments of a Hasselback potato, searching for anything interesting and settling on making him watch Eddie Kaspbrak die every possible way he could die that day. He hung in mid-air suffering death by a thousand cuts and if he had to see it one more time he was going to pull to pieces and then it wouldn't matter if they got him down or not. 

Except the very last time, it was different. 

Richie's legs gave out as he hit the ground, temporarily blinded by the deadlights, his fingers scrabbling against wet rock while Eddie tumbled backwards into the darkness and then he went after him - he couldn't see anything but white light, so he dove and hoped his neck didn't break.

_And this part?_

He landed so hard that it took all the air out of him and something creaked in his side, but he pawed around in the dark until he found him; he could hear the others screaming but he could also hear Eddie's breathing, ragged and wet like bursting bubbles. He found the wound and put pressure on it and Kaspbrak made a sound so horrible that Richie wanted to plug his ears.

When he could see again, they held each others' gaze and didn't look away until Eddie tried to push his hands off of him, kitten-weak and whimpering with the effort of being ornery.

"Yuck." Eddie said, because even an effort to stem the flow of his blood needed to fit his stringent guidelines for cleanliness. That, or he was just saying Richie was gross, which was entirely possible.

"Shut the fuck up," Richie said, putting pressure back on and feeling Eddie's pounding heart through his chest wall and his own pulse in his temples.

"M'gonna die." Eddie pointed out, like he was observing that he had been given the wrong drink at the drive-thru: dang.

"You're not gonna die, shut the _fuck_ up." Richie realized he was yelling and that Eddie's eyes were slipping back into his head so he grabbed him by the shirt and he hung on, he hung on when they took hold of him, he hung on as though Eddie Kaspbrak had become a part of him.

He hung on because one time out of a thousand, Eddie made it.

 _Of course_ he had bet on worse odds, it was just who he was as a person.

* * *

It took two paramedics and one freakishly strong Hanscom to pry him off, his frozen fingers calibrated only for Eddie.

* * *

"Can I ask you a question?"

They were sitting on the steps outside the hospital and Richie was slouching against a metal railing, half of his face deformed by the vertical bar pressing into his cheek, his glasses tucked into the filthy pocket of his shirt. 

Bev looked over at him with her cigarette smoldering between her bruised fingers; with the shadowed hollows and highlighted angles of her scrubbed face and with her hair wet from a bath, she looked serene and pink and beautiful in the early morning light. Beside her, Richie knew he looked like he had been pulled out of a Florida dumpster.

After a while, Bev nodded.

"It's just that you're the only other one -" Richie said and faded off like he had forgotten what he was about to say; she was pretty sure he had hit his head very hard and that this wasn't his usual malfunction.

"- who floated?" she asked, her voice smoke-raspy while curls of it streamed from her lips in elegant gray ribbons. 

"I was gonna say: the only other one who got mind-fucked by the clown lights." Richie said, "But your way was-" he gestured, he drifted again, sinking a little further against the railing, semi-solid Tozier, on the verge of slipping right through the railings like human putty.

"Succinct?" she asked, trying to help him with the gaps.

"Gesundheit." he said: he was high. He was extremely high. He was higher than he had ever been in his life and his eyebrows dug in hard towards each other, clamoring together to become one, "I don't think that was aspirin Mikey gave me."

"It wasn't aspirin that Mike gave you." Bev agreed. She knew because she had been the one to suggest it, hoping that they might be able to convince an inebriated Richie to leave the hospital long enough to get some sleep, or even to just take a bath because he was still caked in blood and filth and he smelled so bad that everyone had to breathe through their mouth around him. 

It hadn't worked because they had all vastly underestimated Richie's tolerance level and instead of becoming malleable and docile, he had just become floppy and belligerent, protesting any effort to escort him from the premises in his Voices, which had admittedly gotten better since he was a kid. At one point he had loudly narrated his own 'kidnapping' while doing a flawless impression of Keith Morrison, sending a sleep-deprived Bill into a fit of laughter so severe that he stuttered Richie's name for a solid minute while trying to shove his passively-resisting form through a doorway.

"How far did you see?" he asked finally, accepting at face value that he had been drugged and not bothering to take it personally, "Like, you said you saw us all die, which I guess is pretty far, I just mean -" 

"I can't really remember it yet." she admitted, watching Richie's dirty profile, his screams outside Neibolt still in her ears while he tried to shake Eddie conscious: _wake up, wake up, wake up, wake the fuck up you little shit, oh god, Eds please_ , "Not all of it, anyways."

"But you did see us all die." he re-iterated and then she knew what he was going to ask, she saw it in the way his jaw worked and she thought _no, don't ask that_ , but then he looked at her and he asked it: "How did I die?"

Bev watched him for a while, exploring the dirt caught in his hair and his stubble, the scrapes on his chin and knuckles and she thought about a version of Richie who had been much smaller and she even saw him for a moment, his eyes magnified by his Buddy Holly glasses, swimming in patterned shirts, looking at her with a self-conscious kind of bravery.

"I don't remember." she lied and he caught it - she saw him catch it because you can't fake a faker - but he nodded anyways and she took another pull on her cigarette, holding the draw while she spoke, "Can I ask you a question?"

He looked at her, he nodded. She waited and clouds escaped her mouth and her nose and she just sat like that, letting it drift from her like she was a smoldering forest, her eyes intense behind a veil of cigarette smoke; in that moment, he knew what was coming, so he looked away and then she didn't have to ask at all. 

She had known, she remembered that now, she had always known, and it warmed a space in her chest that had felt cold since she had gotten that phone call from Mike.

"When are you going to shower?" she asked finally, then Richie glanced down at himself and pulled the stiff, dry, filthy material of his shirt away from himself and gave it a single shake, a plume of dust spraying up around him. 

"Better?" he asked, smiling thinly, knowing it wasn't, and then lapsing into a coughing fit of his own design while Bev continued to smoke.

* * *

"Why would you _induce_ one?" Richie asked and he was louder than he meant to be, but that was normal for him, it was just that nothing else was normal. The doctor in front of him was looking at him like he was an idiot, which just made him want to yell _I'm not an idiot_.

"Isn't that like, the fucking opposite of what you want? Aren't comas fucking _bad_?" He looked helplessly around himself, his position as the crackpot of the group cemented in place because everyone else was clean and looking at him with carefully-concealed concern, except for Ben, whose face showed everything he was thinking: he thought Richie was losing his shit.

"The kind of damage he took - his stomach was punctured and his spine was narrowly missed, his entire abdominal area was herniated and he's going to have wires holding him together for the rest of his life -"

Richie felt the world jolt around him and he only kept on his feet because of a strong hand on his elbow; he looked over into Ben's earnest face, watching his mouth move without hearing what he was saying.

"- the odds of his survival were one in a thousand -"

Everything was moving too fast and too slow all at once, sound reverberated in his vision, everything smelled too strong and his hands were far away, and then the world sank away to nothing.

* * *

"It would explain why he's been so weird."

Mike.

"Not really."

Ben.

"Concussions can temporarily amplify particular personality traits." 

Doctor.

"I just meant that Richie is always a little weird."

Fuck you, Hanscom.

"We did find a significant amount of Lorazepam in his system, beyond a therapeutic dose."

Everyone carefully avoided looking at Mike, who kept his face astonishingly straight.

"Didn't know he had a problem like that." Mike said woodenly, his palms sweating like he was back in grade school, caught with a fistful of bang snaps in his locker, but this was a little different: he had drugged two friends in the last week and he wasn't excited about that reputation.

"You've all been through a lot -"

"I don't remember this part." Richie said as he opened his eyes, the world shifting from side to side like a boat on rough waters, "Why don't I remember this part?"

"Richie, you're going to go back to the hotel with Mike." Bev said, leaning towards him.

"To shower." Ben said pointedly.

"I'm not going to shower with Mike." Richie protested, watching the range of reactions and the doctor gestured at him like _this is what I'm talking about_ and Ben gestured back like _me too, though_. It was a lot of significant gesturing.

"You have to get some sleep." the doctor said.

"Prove it." Richie shot back, watching the man's professional expression contort into puzzlement, so he gestured to Ben again, who gestured right back: _this is how it be_.

"P-p-"

Richie looked over at Bill, then everyone looked over at him, all of them waiting out the consonant, watching him standing there with his eyes shut and his mouth pulled into a determined thin line as he tried to eject the word.

"-p- _please_." Bill said, opening his eyes and meeting his gaze, adding, "Richie."

Richie stared back at him with his bottom lip pinned slightly over the top one, then he was climbing unsteadily off the bed, leaving a Tozier-shaped shadow of dirt on the sheets.

"Yeah, okay." he said, because that was all it had ever taken from Bill.

* * *

"Lorazepam, huh?"

"Yeah." Mike said as he drove, glancing his way once, "Look, I'm sorry about -"

"You take those usually?" Richie interrupted, just a little louder than he needed to be in order to get it across: I can't hear you. Mike got the point.

"Sometimes." he said.

"What, are you like crazy or something?" he asked, keeping his head pointed at the wind screen and his eyes pointed in Mike's direction, gauging him.

"Maybe a little." he said softly.

"I was fucking with you." Richie shot back, slouching down in the seat, unaccustomed to a world where anyone took him seriously, gesturing a hand towards the window, towards Derry, "Of course you're fucking crazy, you still live in this shithole."

"What part?" Mike asked suddenly and they looked at each other, confusion twisting Richie's face, "In the hospital, you said 'I don't remember this part', what did you mean by that?"

Richie shrugged.

"Who knows, man." he lied, "Hey, sorry you spent like twenty-seven years working on a shitty plan, that had to suck for you."

Mike finally smiled and the expression eased a whole decade off of his face.

"Maybe a little." he repeated.

They were quiet for a while.

"He's going to be okay." Mike said suddenly, the tone of someone who didn't precisely know how to be comforting, but was trying it out; beside him, Richie went a little stiffer in the seat, rubbing at his dusty forearms like he was suddenly cold, looking anywhere but him, "Rich?"

Richie said:

"You have any more of those pills? Or something stronger?"

Mike thought about it.

"Yeah." he said finally.

* * *

On second thought, maybe it was a bad idea to be high in the hotel, but by the time it occurred to Richie that he was sitting in the bath Eddie had hidden from Henry Bowers in, it was too late for him to do anything about it. His eyes dragged helplessly up to the brand new curtain caging him in, his knees up to his chest because his giraffe legs wouldn't fit into any reasonably-sized tub. 

It had taken scrubbing. It had taken a lot of scrubbing, he had gone through four wash cloths, most of a bar of soap, and a full mini bottle of shampoo just trying to get Derry off of him, soaking his glasses in the bath with him afterwards, though he wouldn't admit to himself or anyone else that he had hesitated to do so because the blood on the lens belonged to Eddie, because that would be sick of him, it would be morbid and sentimental. He wasn't those things. He could wash his glasses and not feel like he was getting rid of something important and irreplaceable because Eddie was alive and he was going to stay alive.

Richie watched the blood turn the water around it vaguely pink before dispersing and he had the thought that he should drain the bath, because it couldn't be healthy, sitting in that.

He waited a while before he did - in fact, he let the bath get cold before he bothered, telling himself that there was no sense in wasting water, because he was suddenly deeply into environmental considerations, because he wasn't extremely high and obsessing over bathing in a couple drops of blood like a goth teenager trying something out. 

When he finally climbed out of the bath, his fingertips were wrinkled and he was shivering from the temperature shift, his head swimming with sedatives; he risked looking in the mirror and was relieved that the only thing looking back at him was his ragged face, a thought that made him suddenly want to get away from the mirror just in case that changed.

When he got back to his room, there were bags in there that didn't belong to him and it only took an instant for him to realize they were Eddie's, so he sat and stared at them for a long time. He tried to remind himself that a week ago, he didn't even remember who Eddie Kaspbrak was and even with his best efforts, he wouldn't have been able to picture his face - but now that he was sitting there, he couldn't stop thinking about it. He couldn't stop thinking about the fact there had been a silhouette of him wandering his thoughts for twenty-seven years, formative to aspects of himself that he'd been doing his best to overlook until he couldn't anymore.

It was another thing he shouldn't have done, but he did it anyways: he opened Eddie's luggage. The first bag was full of medication, it was an entire pharmacy. It was every kind of vitamin, anti-inflammatory, mild pain-killer, moderate pain-killer, strong pain-killer, illegal pain-killer, sleep aid, allergy medication, eye drop, nasal spray, there was even a packet of birth control pills, which told him a couple things: the first was that Eddie had definitely just stuck his arm into the medicine cabinet and swiped everything into the luggage, and the second was that he and Myra didn't want kids yet.

Or maybe they had kids already and didn't want any more? He felt like he should know that and suddenly he was annoyed with himself that he didn't. 

He closed the main compartment and was about to move on to the next one when he paused to check the front pocket as well, removing a plastic zip-bag with several colourful pills in it. It took a moment for Richie to recognize it as ecstasy and then he began to laugh.

"Holy shit, Eddie." he said, putting them back where he found them.

The next, smaller bag was full of toiletries: a significant amount of soap, moisturizers, serums, under-eye treatments and colour-correctors and lip scrubs, a manicure set and tweezers and salt spray with coconut water, three different deodorants. He smelled everything that he picked up and told himself it could be way worse than what he was doing: he definitely could have been masturbating, that would have been worse. 

His standard of behaviour was not great in that moment, but he struggled to feel any shame until he got to the last piece of luggage and looked inside at the clear plastic zip-up bags with two labels: clean, dirty. _Of course_ Eddie separated his clothes like that. _Of course_ even the dirty ones had been folded and organized by colour. He reached guiltily for it, removing a gray t-shirt and deciding that he'd hit the point of _enough_ , zipping everything shut and sitting on the floor with the clothing in his hands, just holding it for a while.

He told himself how pathetic he was and then he slept with the shirt spread out on his pillow anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore


	2. Waffles

A bird was trilling outside and he wished it would shut its face.

He must have woken up too soon because Richie felt foggy and disoriented as he drooped on the edge of the bed; his head felt like it was only attached in theory, as though his skeleton had climbed out while he was asleep and now he was just a fleshy bag of organs, ready to spill onto the floor at any moment. 

He groped the side table for his glasses, pausing with them mid-way to his face, inspecting the lenses for any evidence of what they had been through. The moment he got back to L.A, he was going to buy contacts in bulk and he would wear three pairs at a time just to spite his glasses, he would go to strip clubs and make it rain with boxes of Acuvue. He thought about putting that joke into his next act and told himself he would eventually find his phone to make a voice memo, then promptly decided that it was never going to happen because it was too many steps to get from point A (where he was on the bed) to point B (having willpower and adult organizational skills). In his defense, the bed was soft and warm and that was it, that was his entire defense, because he had four voice memo applications on his smartphone and roughly sixty-eight thousand post-it notepads kicking around his apartment, courtesy of a manager who didn't believe him when he said he never wrote anything down. 

In fact, only a single post-it note had ever been used by Richie five months prior when he had been put on hold for the third time while trying to rearrange a flight schedule for his tour; he had used a red sharpie and he had not written anything useful on it. 

He had just written the word 'fuck', actually.

The hallway outside of his room was silent while he looked over the railing at the empty floor below, somehow knowing without doubt that he was the only one in the building. He thought idly about what it would be like to jump from where he was standing and then backed away, not trusting his own impulsiveness. He headed to the bathroom where he washed his face in the sink and rubbed his fingers into the inner corners of his aching eyes; when he dropped his hands away and looked in the mirror, he saw that they were deeply bloodshot. He thought about shaving to try and head off the unsettling look he was rocking and decided it was too much effort.

He pushed aside the shower curtain to put the water on and Stanley Uris looked up at him from where his head was tilted almost upside-down over the edge of the tub like his spine was a slinky, his naked gray body disappearing into the murky bath and he said:

"It's greywater, Richie."

Then he was moving like a wind-up toy, one jerky joint at a time as he levered his right arm out of the bath to grip the edge and the flesh was open from the base of his palm all the way to his elbow, exposed muscle and tendon flexing as he moved, creaking like an ancient violin bow and Richie was gone, falling over a crease in the carpet on his way out of the bathroom, pedaling his heels into the ground to propel himself back on his hands before he could clumsily get to his feet, his shoulder ramming into the railing, which gave way and sent him off the second floor 

Richie woke up noiselessly, head lifted from the pillow, his mouth Xanax-dry, his heart hitting hard against his chest while a bird trilled outside; dropping his head back down on the bed, he laid staring at the ceiling, willing himself to calm his shit.

"You okay?"

"Shit!" Richie yelled, shoving all six feet of himself back against the headboard, tangled in the sheets while Mike watched him from the doorway and because he couldn't think of anything to say he just yelled: "Is that a cardigan?"

Mike looked down at himself, examining the sweater he had on: it was a cardigan, made of scratchy brown wool with wooden fastens on it.

"It has elbow patches." Richie said, "You look like a librarian."

"I _am_ a librarian." Mike pointed out.

"They call that a self-dunk." Richie replied, untangling himself from the sheets, getting to his feet and standing awkwardly in front of the other man, "You know, I thought if anyone was gonna be taller than me, it was gonna be Bill."

"Yeah, what's with that?" Mike asked, as though it had been riding his thoughts for the last several days, "He's short isn't he?"

"Weirdly short." Richie agreed too readily, "Hey, can you do me a favour?" He tried to transition it smoothly, but it came out abrupt anyways.

"Yeah, of course." Mike said; the immediacy of his reply told Richie that he and Hanlon could very easily get into a lot of trouble together.

"Can you check the bath tub?" 

"Can I check the bath tub?" Mike repeated.

"Yeah, _can you check the bath tub_ , let's not make it weird."

Mike didn't ask any more than that, he just lifted his hands in passive acceptance and Richie hesitated before trailing after him down the hall, feeling like an enormous fucking child who needed someone to look under his bed. He put his head against the door frame while Mike went in, listening to his soft footsteps and then the rattle of the rings over the bar as he pushed the shower curtain aside.

"Nothing in here, Rich." Mike said, his tone careful and soothing and _knowing_ , because of course Mike knew what was happening and it showed in his face when he stepped back in the doorway, the two of them mere inches away from each other, Richie with his head tilted down and his eyes tilted up as they had some kind of silent stand-off, but Richie had never been great with quiet so he said:

"Guess that means there's room for both of us in there, big boy." 

Then he waggled his eyebrows at Mike, who shook his head at him, smiling just a little, but the expression faded again a moment later.

"It's going to be bad for a while." Mike said soberly.

"What is?" Richie asked, trying to keep himself from sounding defensive.

"Everything." he replied, patting a hand gently on Richie's chest and then moving past him.

"That was a weird pep talk, Hanlon." Richie said, turning to watch him move down the steps and he wanted to say _please don't leave, I am fucking scared_ , but instead he just said, "Hey, you wanna go get fucked up?"

"It's ten in the morning." Mike said.

"You got something better to do?" Richie asked and Mike paused on the steps, motionless long enough that a knowing smile pulled across Tozier's face, so he added laughingly, "Yeah, you wanna get fucked up."

* * *

"I'm not sure you're even supposed to be drinking right now." Mike said to Richie, who was definitely drinking. They were sitting elbow-to-elbow at a bar that had been scrubbed so many times that it was bare and pale under their hands, the varnish having long ago been worn away. They had entered the pub - a little basement-level fire hazard - the moment it had opened and Mike was starting to feel as though he had made an error in judgement because he could usually keep up when going shot-for-shot but it seemed like Richie was drinking with the intention of waking up hurting later. Mike's vision was swimming but Richie was still squirrelly, a mix of tense muscles and loose joints, like his body couldn't decide if it was stressed or relaxed.

He thought suddenly about the deadlights and the way Richie had turned into a marionette in a split second; there hadn't been a lot of time to go over everything, but he wondered if there might be some ramifications for Richie. He knew what Bev had been able to tell him about what she had seen but she had held some things back and forgotten others. From what little he knew of it, he didn't wish the experience on anyone - except maybe himself, because his curiousity got the better of him every time, because he was obsessed enough that if he had been given the opportunity to look into the lights, he likely would have taken it, even knowing it might break his brain. The fact he even thought about it as an _opportunity_ was telling. 

A mad man.

"That'd be a big fuck up if I'm not." Richie laughed, then swallowed more bourbon, "Why?"

"Because you've got a concussion." Mike said.

"I have a concussion?" Richie asked, genuinely baffled; if he thought about it, he could vaguely remember something along those lines being said but it was blurred by sedatives. "That explains a few things."

"Like what?"

"Like why my head fucking hurts." Richie said, uncomfortably aware of the way Mike was gently poking around his feelings, efforts that were quiet but unsubtle, so he added, "I'm fine."

"Are you?" he asked, dark eyes exploring Richie's face with such intensity that he felt his ears go hot; the complicated part about being someone who always wanted attention was that he often didn't know what to do with it once he had it. In the face of things like empathy and consideration, Richie found himself at a loss, suddenly dealing with the maddening urge to push Mike off his seat just to make the kindness stop.

"No, of course I'm not fine, none of us are fucking fine, that was messed up, this whole week was messed up. What the fuck was that, even?" Richie asked and Mike smiled at the monotone indignation in the other man's voice, looking down at the bar top so he wouldn't distract Tozier from the momentum of his monologue with eye contact, "A bunch of middle-aged assholes rolling around underground, learning the value of friendship, Jesus Christ, and what's with Ben?" he looked over at Mike, who met his gaze with expectant eyes, so Richie gestured, "He's a stallion with eyebrows, I'm pretty sure even It got wood from him."

"Oh god." Mike said, dropping his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with silent and disgusted laughter, which made Richie feel like he was finally back on familiar ground.

"What, too soon for clown boners?" Richie asked, then signalled the bartender for another round, "I'm serious, all of you got weirdly hot and like, this is the age where we're supposed to start looking dumpy and sad, so why do you have that extra muscle on your upper arm?" Richie jabbed Mike for emphasis and refused to show that he had genuinely hurt his finger in doing so, because even he had a fragment of pride.

"Those are my triceps, Richie."

"I don't know what that means but you're like forty-five, so start eating your feelings like the rest of us." he said, picking up his glass, bitterly adding, "Why am I the only one with forehead wrinkles?"

"Maybe you need a better skincare routine?" Mike tried.

"I just grind my face on stubbly lady legs when I need to exfoliate." Richie said, the response so unthinking that he paused, looking perplexed by himself, "I think I blacked out there, what did I just say? Was that stubbly -"

"- lady legs, yeah." Mike agreed, nodding along with Richie, both of them smiling down at their drinks.

"Yeah, I don't do skin care - why are you still here?" Richie asked, forcing the topics together: square peg, round hole, Richie hammer, "I thought you would have left a cartoon dust cloud with how fast you'd be out of here, you've literally been here your whole life, why are you still here?"

"Because you're still here," Mike said, "And Bill, and Ben, and Bev,"

"A lot of 'B' names, I just realized," Richie began pointlessly, because he knew the next part was coming and his eyes were already burning.

"And Eds."

There it was, and then he was struggling to swallow the whiskey he'd put in his mouth as a distraction, like his throat didn't want to work anymore - but he needed that liquor, so he forced it down while Hanlon watched him with that same blend of curiousity and worry on his face.

"Richie," Mike said gently.

"You said my name so nicely that I'm half-worried and half-hard right now." he replied, toying with his glass, his hands suddenly sweating when the other man leaned in towards him, the universal signal of not wanting to be overheard, the universal signal that something private was about to be said - this was the part where it happened, wasn't it? This was the part when Mike said that he knew, that he'd figured it out, that he thought Richie was a disgusting -

"What did you see in the deadlights?"

Tozier looked so openly relieved that Mike's eyebrows shot up, the transition only then making him aware of how tense the other man had gotten in the last few seconds. They watched each other, Richie swallowing until his heart was resting back in his chest, then he said:

"Oh, we'd have to be _way_ more fucked up for that conversation." 

Mike was quiet for a while.

"Okay." he said finally, gesturing to the bartender.

"Wait, what?" 

* * *

A bird was trilling outside and he wished it would shut its face.

Richie didn't sit up this time, instead he stayed exactly where he was and kept his eyes shut and didn't move; he already knew how bad this was going to be because breathing was making his head hurt, a sharp pain around his hairline that throbbed when he exhaled. His throat and mouth were desert dry, his tongue was sticking to his palate and he thought about getting up and drinking water right from the faucet like he did as a kid, and then he thought about the bathroom and then the bath tub and then -

"Am I awake?" he asked out loud; the sound of his own voice made him want to die but he risked opening his eyes anyways, staring up at the ceiling of his hotel room, which was very, very slowly spinning around him. He told himself that his mind couldn't manufacture the kind of misery he was in, that he had to be awake, so he slowly pulled himself upright, using a side table to messily get to his feet, staggering out into the hall and standing for a while outside of the bathroom, staring in at the sink and imagining the bath tub that he couldn't see. He looked at the mirror a moment later, then glanced down at himself, grabbing at the hem of his shirt to pull it away from himself because he was wearing something he'd never seen before: a yellow button-up with a repeating pattern of women in colourful bikinis.

A feeling began to crawl up the back of his neck, a sense that somehow this had happened already.

"What the fuck?" he asked out loud, looking up at the mirror again and almost jumping out of his skin when a bruised face appeared in the reflection behind him.

"Sorry!" Ben said, reflexively putting his hands up when Richie jolted beside him, grasping his upper arm to steady him, then releasing it as though unclear on whether he was allowed to do it to begin with.

"I thought I just got really handsome for a second." Richie replied, his pulse pounding in his temple and his back to the railing; he glanced back over his shoulder at the floor below before moving away from it.

"Sorry, I thought you heard me." Ben said, patting at his pockets and then putting his hands in them and Richie could still see an awkward kid in the movement, someone who didn't know what to do with himself when he wasn't busy and when eyes were on him, "I'm surprised you're awake after last night, I don't think Hanlon is ever going to be the same."

"What, he's here?" Richie asked; Ben's eyebrows lifted, the realization that Tozier didn't remember, but he didn't say anything about it.

"Yeah, he's in my room." Ben replied and he immediately knew the mistake he had made, acceptance setting into his expression.

"Ah, it's low hanging fruit," Richie drawled as though he wasn't going to take it, then added, "You work fast, huh?"

"There it is." Ben said, "You and Mike needed a ride last night, it took both of us to get him into the car, it just made more sense to bring him here."

"Where'd you sleep?" Richie asked, watching Hanscom's face shift into open embarrassment as he rocked a little on the spot, chewing on the inner corner of his mouth, refusing to say because gentlemen didn't talk about that kind of thing, "Oh. _Oh_." Bev. Richie's face split into a toothy grin, " _Nice_."

"Stop." Ben laughed, refusing the raised hand on principle, so Richie high-fived himself, then looked down at his shirt again.

"Hey, did I like, borrow this from someone?" he asked, pointing at the alternating line of women across his chest, one face down, the next face up, a few of them with sunglasses or big hats, disturbingly and lovingly detailed. It was horrible so Richie was going to keep it.

"Mh," Ben said, shaking his head, "Don't think so. You might have gotten it down at the fair."

"I was at the fair?"

"I'm not sure you should be drinking with a concussion." Ben pointed out.

"I don't even remember hitting my head."

"Because you have a concussion."

Richie silently conceded his point, reaching up to finger the spot where it hurt most and then hissing, pulling his hand back.

"You probably shouldn't touch that." Ben said as Richie crossed into the bathroom to see his reflection in the light, pushing his hair back and turning his head to look at the side where a sizeable bandage had been carefully placed around his hairline, dried blood stuck in the strands. He looked at Hanscom in the mirror.

"What the fuck happened last night?" Richie asked, watching as Ben lifted his hands, fingers splayed: don't know.

* * *

"What the f-f-" Bill began, fighting with the fricative for a moment before winning, " _Fuck_ happened last night?" he was standing in the open doorway to Ben's hotel room with the backdrop of Mike face down on the bed, his arm hanging over the side of it, so dead to the world that Denbrough had been compelled to check his pulse, which Mike had also slept through. He regarded Ben and Richie with big blue eyes, his expression chiefly one of puzzlement but if Richie looked closely, he could see the very edge of amusement as though Bill was trying to hide it and it made him want pull it into view, to slowly expose Bill's smile like a bawdy peep show. He suddenly had the fierce desire to hear Denbrough laugh the way he used to down in the quarry when they were kids.

"Can't answer that." Richie said, "But I think Ben and Mike smashed."

"You get that out of your system?" Ben asked casually.

"Kind of." Richie tilted his head from side-to-side: _comme ci comme ça_ , "Might have a little more in me."

"What h-happened to your h-head?"

"Apparently I have a concussion." Richie said, intentionally obtuse, "Oh, you mean this?" he pointed at the bandage, "Yeah, no clue. Hey, if Mike wakes up can you ask him what the fuck? I need to go smoke until I die." 

They watched him totter unsteadily down the stairs before they exchanged glances and wordlessly split away, Ben going to check on Mike while Bill followed Tozier outside, standing beside him while he lit a cigarette. The sky was gray and the streets were empty and it was humid enough that Bill could feel his temples growing damp.

"We need to tell Myra." he said.

"What?" Richie asked, "What, the hospital didn't call her?"

"Eddie didn't have her as his n-next of kin." 

Richie shut his eyes because he knew exactly who Eddie had listed, that he hadn't changed it even though he had been married for years, that the phone call they made had gone to a dead line or it had gone to whoever had gotten her number after she'd died, assuming Eddie hadn't done something like keep her phone hooked up.

"Maybe that means he wouldn't want her to know." Richie suggested, knowing it was ungenerous of him, so he was surprised when Bill didn't argue.

"M-may-maybe." Bill said quietly.

"Did any of us end up happy?" Richie asked, watching Denbrough look down at his feet; he realized he'd gone too heavy, even for Bill. Or maybe it just wasn't the way it used to be, maybe it wasn't something they could talk about and it was hypocritical of him to expect it when there was plenty he wasn't saying, "Remember when we built a dam and flooded the Barrens?"

He watched Bill freeze, his brows knitting as he riffled through the deck of his memory before it showed on his face, easing his expression into something suddenly very young, opening it up to a slow smile that showed most of his teeth.

"Aw yeah, that's the good shit." Richie said, watching Bill's brow quirk, "Nothing, I just - I was trying to make you smile, I was starting to get like, blue balls."

"I remember." Bill said finally, graciously keeping the smile around for a little longer, then saying, "I don't think so." he glanced at Richie, clarifying, "I don't think any of us ended up ha-happy."

Somehow it was a relief to hear it, not the answer itself, but the fact Bill had answered at all.

"You're not happy?" Richie asked.

"I don't think so." Bill repeated, "I just haven't decided what I'm going to d-do about it. Maybe I just need to try harder. Maybe it'll be easier now."

"Now that -?" Richie held out his hand, palm up, fingers clutching the air and pulsing rhythmically, illustrating a beating heart.

"Yeah." Bill said, gently pushing Richie's hand back down as though he didn't want to see it anymore, "I didn't stutter outside of Derry. I thought it would have stop-stopped again by now."

"I can't wear my contacts here," Richie pointed out, "It was like the moment I got here, my eyes were on fire, it's still happening but that might be the hangover." Bill's eyes crawled back up to the bandage on his head, open curiousity apparent, "You think that was part of this whole thing?"

"Make us feel like kids again?" Bill asked, and they considered the possibility in silence until a bird trilled nearby.

"I keep hearing that." Richie said, turning on the spot, "What kind of bird is that?"

"A gold-go-goldfinch." Bill said.

They were quiet while Richie made his way through his first cigarette and when he stubbed it out Bill spoke.

"I'm going up to the hospital, B-Bev has been there a while." he said, a question in his expression.

"I'll come up later." Richie said, then realized he was lying, that he didn't want to go up to the hospital because he didn't want to go into that room, because he didn't want to see him like that, because the very idea terrified him in ways he couldn't fully explain.

"Okay." Bill said, "You should eat something, Richie. There's that diner down the road - they have good waff- _w_ _aff-"_ Richie smiled and then Bill smiled as well, shaking his head at him for the silent mockery, "Waff-waffles, _shithead_."

They both began to laugh, starting small and then rising into helpless gasping fits of it, neither of them fully understanding what was so funny, but clinging to each other anyways. When they finally broke away, Bill headed to his car still tittering to himself and Richie watched him go until he drove off, his chest warm in a way that was both alien and familiar.

He pulled out a second cigarette and turned to look up at the Derry Townhouse, studying the old brick, eyes moving over the windows as he tried to figure out which room was his and when he found it, for a moment he thought there was a silhouette by the curtain, but decided it was a trick of the light. As he lit the cigarette, a bird landed on the railing in front of him, small and gray with a flush of yellow on its head.

"Hey, asshole." Richie said, and then the bird laid an egg that smashed open on the stairs, a half-formed chick tumbling from it, purple and writhing and when he looked back up at the goldfinch, it was examining him closely before opening Its beak and letting out a human scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on Twitter @BoWritesMore


	3. Eddie.

Richie couldn't specifically remember running but he must have done so because he was in his rented Mustang with the doors locked and his chest heaving, laying across the seats staring at nothing. For a handful of minutes there was only frozen animal terror, compounded by the fact there was no one else around - it wasn't just being _alone_ that was the problem, it was that he couldn't verify what had just happened.

"Nope." Richie said, sliding his hands to his face, pressing his fingers against his eyes, "No, nope, not good." They had killed It, hadn't they? Torn out and crushed Its still-beating heart, there had been cathartic primal screaming, there had been smiting, it had been a _whole thing_. It was dead. He slapped his hands against his face and when that didn't seem sufficient, he pinched the spot just below his ear as hard as he could, and when that didn't seem like enough either, he ground his finger into the bandage on his hairline. Pain shot through his skull, a combination of injury, hangover, and a concussion and it was so intense that sparks came up in his vision and he rolled onto his side, dry heaving: he was definitely awake this time.

When the pain ebbed away to something manageable, the coolly rational part of his brain chimed in that there was a logical explanation for what had just happened. Maybe it was stress or injury or the deadlights or a result of all three, maybe it was overload from everything he had remembered or maybe he'd triggered psychosis by mixing Lorazepam and Xanax and then binge drinking, whatever had caused it the answer was simple: he had snapped.

"Fuck." he said into his palms once, loudly, and then made himself sit up, gripping the steering wheel. He thought about what he should do and it occurred to him that he could leave, that he didn't have to be in Derry anymore - he had done his part, hadn't he? He didn't need to stay, the others had everything under control now and it wasn't as though he was going to be of any use, right? He had already put his entire career on the line by cutting his tour short after he'd choked back in L.A, leaving his manager in the dust with half of a story about a blood oath he'd made when he was eleven. He could call and get things back on track, he always did better when he was working.

He could leave.

Then he was sitting at the city line, the Mustang idling at the side of the road with the big green Leaving Derry sign right in front of him and all he had to do was drive, that was it, he just had to put the gas down and in a few more feet he was free. 

_Hey, Rich, listen - I think I got It, man!_

He could just leave.

Then he was sitting in the hospital, anchored in the waiting room with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, bouncing his leg up and down and asking himself why he hadn't just hit the gas. He could be at Bangor by then, buying the first open seat that would get him back to L.A. in a single shot, he could go back to his apartment and he could smoke a joint, then he could get into his bed and pull the blanket over his head and pretend that none of this had ever happened. 

"Richie, your _head_."

Richie jerked upright and instantly regretted it when pain snapped through him and he tried to think of something funny to say but Bev was reaching for him with concern in her eyes so he just sat there while her fingers brushed over the stubble on either side of his face and her thumb lined the borders of the bandage on his head. 

"It's not that bad." he said, not knowing if that was strictly true - he hadn't actually seen what was under it but he was walking and talking so he figured it was fine, at least right up until Bev pulled her phone out, put the camera on and then turned it to him. He let out a groan of dismay at his own face, "Front-facing cameras always make me look like the Wizard of Oz, I'm just a forehead." he complained, then saw that his bandage was completely saturated, "I must have rubbed at it or something."

"At least you're in the right place for it." she said, taking his upper arm like she was worried he was going to run across a street without looking both ways, "Come on."

* * *

There was a collective inhale and Richie's eyes moved from the doctor, to Bev, to Bill, and back again.

"What?" he asked, "What, is it bad?"

"It's not good." said Dr. Anders, who had seen the same five people rotating through his hospital for the last several days, each of them coming to him in private to address bizarre injuries they had been ignoring. Kaspbrak was obviously the most difficult case among them, but from what he knew of the man, he was also the only one who was likely to take his own health seriously, "Who sutured this?"

"'Sutured'?" Richie repeated blankly.

"You didn't know you had stitches?" Anders asked slowly, so Richie gestured for emphasis because he had no actual defense, "Mr. Tozier," he began, which made Richie look down at his hands because there had never existed a good conversation that began with Mr. Tozier, "I assume that if you didn't know about the stitches, you also don't know how this happened?"

"Or how I got this shirt." Richie pointed out, ignoring the looks he was getting from his friends, their eyes pleading for him to behave for three seconds but when he got like this it was like he couldn't stop, his tongue working of its own volition even when he knew he needed to shut his mouth.

"So you're suffering from memory lapses."

"That's just from drinking."

"I'm sorry, you drank enough to black out while you had a concussion? Is that everything I need to know?"

"Yes." Richie said firmly; he told himself to leave it, but he couldn't resist, "Aside from the Fentanyl."

There was no laughter forthcoming. Shit. He tried to think of a joke. Be funny, Tozier.

_Why did the goldfinch cross the road?_

_I don't know, why?_

_Ahhhhhhhh!_

"That's a joke, it was just Xanax." Richie added quickly.

"Beep beep." Bill said, because the doctor looked like he was about to have a stroke.

"I'm admitting you for overnight observation." Anders concluded, raising his volume just a little to speak over his attempt to talk back, by then fully aware of Tozier's tendencies and reasonably not wanting him to get another word in, "A medical assistant will give you a local and then I'll be back to repair -" his eyes lifted to Richie's forehead again, "That." He left the room and then Bev levered her phone up for a second time, letting him get a look at what they were dealing with, his mouth pulling into an indecipherable line. 

"Yeah - I gotta talk to Mike about this." Richie said, handing the phone back, "Real talk for a second: either of you seeing fucked up shit anymore?"

Bev and Bill inspected each other for a moment, then they both shook their heads.

"No?" Richie asked, looking between them a couple of times, "Cool." he rubbed his hands on his thighs, then clasped them between his knees, "Yeah, me neither."

* * *

Ben was trying not to stare but it was difficult for a couple of reasons.

The first was that Mike looked rough. Given what they had been through in the last few days it was understandable that none of them were functioning at peak capacity, most of them were only just beginning to catch up with all of their biological imperatives and sleep was going to be hard-earned for a while. Hanlon had slept through the majority of the day but the combination of exhaustion from the week and what had to be one hell of a hangover had left him looking grey and fragile in spite of his powerful frame.

The second reason was that Mike was holding a stuffed frog: it was two feet tall, bright green with a yellow stomach, and it was tucked under his arm. They were sitting across from each other in a greasy spoon that had been around since they were teenagers, a place with white formica tables and red plastic booths, waiting for the breakfast they had ordered for dinner. Ben hadn't asked about it when he had come down the hotel stairs and now that they had made it to the diner, he felt as though it was somehow too late - he couldn't seem to summon a segue and Mike hadn't acknowledged that he was, in fact, carrying around an enormous stuffed frog. Its head was squished up against his side while he drank his coffee, its enormous eyes pointing in opposite directions from the pressure of his elbow on its head.

Ben forced his gaze off of it, instead watching Mike watching everything else. He looked so much like the kid he remembered, steadfast and alert, but now there was a constant thrum of nervous energy and even when he was holding still it looked like he was moving or like he wanted to be moving, like an optical illusion. He had the feeling that no one would be able to sneak up on Mike Hanlon and that if they did, they would deeply regret it - he had the square shoulders and hard fists of someone who had spent a long time preparing himself for the very worst.

"It had to be hard, staying here." Ben said, breaking the silence and watching Mike's face make a journey before ultimately settling on something that looked a little embarrassed and he tried to hide it in his coffee cup.

"Sometimes." Mike said over the edge of the porcelain; he had a tendency to understate the truth as a coping mechanism, to leave out particular details and gloss over anything that might be emotional. Every day of Mike Hanlon's life had been a living hell but he had adapted to it, normalized it because anything else would have made survival impossible - the rest of them had been able to forget, at least consciously. Mike had never been afforded that kindness.

"You know, I keep trying to find the right way to apologize." Ben said, watching Hanlon's face crease, "For the fact you had to do this for so long on your own."

"I could have walked away." Mike pointed out quickly.

"Yeah?" Ben asked carefully, meeting his friend's gaze, only to have it pull away a moment later because they both knew he couldn't have - an enormous burden had been laid across Mike's shoulders and he'd felt he ethically had no choice but to carry it. Ben tried to imagine having done the same but he hadn't done the same and the concept of twenty-seven more years in Derry seemed impossible, "You saved a lot of people, Mike."

Hanlon's face flexed in a way that made him look pained, as though it was somehow both the last thing he wanted to hear and something he needed to hear, the verbal equivalent of having a splinter removed. It took a moment for Ben to realize that Mike wasn't accustomed to any attention at all.

"It's not praise," Ben said even though it was, because he wanted to tell Mike that he had done something amazing, that he had been strong in a way few people would be able to manage, that he was a hero, but he knew it wasn't something he would be comfortable with, "It's fact. If you hadn't stayed here -"

"Please." Mike said softly, looking down at the table; as far as Ben could recall, it was the only time he had ever seen Hanlon look shy, comparing the softened expression to the kid who had climbed into the guts of Derry armed with a bolt gun. He couldn't help smiling at the memory and Mike reflexively returned the expression, "What?"

"Nothing." Ben said, leaning back as their food arrived; since returning to Derry, Hanscom had found himself coping with urges that he'd gotten control of years ago and being faced with an enormous breakfast sent a flash of shame through him. He pushed the feeling down, wondering suddenly if any of the others were dealing with old compulsions as well but certain that he was the only one who wanted to raid the corner store for every piece of licorice they had.

He watched as Mike moved the stuffed frog carefully to the other side of the booth as though giving it a spot of its own, its limp foot-long legs dangling over the seat. 

"Hey Mike?" Ben said.

"Uh-huh?"

"Is that blood?" he pointed his fork at a streak across the frog's green felt head and Mike looked over at it, inspecting it. It was like watching a crime scene investigator at work, his expression focused and analytical, truly inspecting the toy as though he had never seen it before.

"Yeah." Mike concluded.

"Okay." Ben said carefully, watching Hanlon turn his attention to his food, then watching him pause as his memory army-crawled over his hangover.

"Oh, shit." Mike said, dropping his toast, "Have you seen Richie?"

Ben put his fork down and leaned his elbows onto the table, his face pleading and his voice a whisper:

"Okay, I definitely need to know what happened last night."

* * *

"Is there something I can do for you?"

Richie didn't know how long he'd been standing in one spot but a nurse who came up to his elbow was beside him, inspecting him with the expression of one prepared to get into a fist fight if that was what it took. He was holding his I.V. stand and wearing a hospital gown that was completely immodest from any angle so he had paired it with his boxers and padded bare foot down the hall, completing his appearance as someone who had completely lost their shit. 

"Huh?" Richie said while her eyes traveled to the bandage on his head and the marks on his unshaven face.

"You ought to be in your room." she pointed out, "Where is your room? You're not ICU."

"No, yeah, no." Richie said, "I've just, there's someone -" he pointed to the room, feeling like a caveman because all he could summon was: "Eddie. Friend."

"Alright," she said, "Well, you can't just stand in the hall."

"Right, yeah." he stared at the door knob and willed himself to go in but he couldn't seem to make himself do it - somehow he could walk onto a stage in front of six hundred people but he couldn't walk through one fucking door: _very scary_.

The nurse reached around him and opened it for him and he glanced her way again, making eye contact and suddenly he was embarrassed enough to propel himself forward, crossing the threshold into a private room, managing a few steps before his legs stopped working again and then he was just standing there, staring. It was as bad as he thought it would be: there were straps and tubes all over Eddie, monitors and machines and forced ventilation and he was as still as a mannequin. Someone must have brushed his hair while it was still damp because there were comb lines in it, his eyelids had a sheen from some kind of moisturizer and his hands were on top of the sheets, palms facing up - something about that in particular made Richie's chest feel tight and he was glad no one else was around to hear the small, high-pitched noise that escaped him.

"Hey, man." Richie choked out before he crossed the room, "You look like garbage, so at least someone else is on my level." he came up beside the bed, eyes traveling over Eddie once, then back to his face, "Heard they had to sew you back together, you think your dick sits higher up now or what?" he wrung the railing in both hands, the metal squeaking under his clammy palms before he brought them back and wiped the sweat off on his hospital gown, "They made me get an I.V, it weirds me out that it's just in my vein right now, so my situation is way worse than yours, you're just taking a long nap," He crossed his arms against himself, "I have to be conscious for this shit."

He was losing track of what he was saying but he wasn't sure it mattered, he was just riffing because if he didn't then there was silence and he wasn't sure he could tolerate that, not when he wanted Kaspbrak cursing him out, calling him names, telling him to shut the fuck up just so he could do the opposite and watch his eyes bug out. He was hopeless.

"Why the fuck did I come all the way out to Maine if you're just going to lay there?" he added, "We're still in Maine, by the way, your fault - yeah, so the faster you get over this shit, the faster we can get the fuck out of here." he rubbed his hands on the gown once more, unconscious acknowledgement of Eddie's personal boundaries before he reached out to touch the very edge of his jaw, tilting his head to get a look at his cheek, "Scar is gonna look pretty cool, kind of badass actually, but what are you gonna tell Myra?"

What were any of them going to tell Myra? 

"You'd better wake up from this." he added, withdrawing his hand, the warmth of Eddie Kaspbrak's skin and the grit of his five o'clock shadow leaving sense memory on his fingertips, "Because you're gonna look really stupid if you survived New York and died in Derry." he glanced around himself and then tested the length of his I.V. tube by moving across the room without bringing the stand with him, noisily dragging a chair over so he could sit down nearby.

"I'm just gonna like," he lowered himself into the seat, "Sit here and take advantage of the fact you can't tell me to get out and I'm going to stare at you the whole time because I know you hate it, so if you want me to stop, you're gonna have to get up and make me." 

He pumped his foot against the ground, his chair squeaking softly.

"Bandage." Richie said suddenly, pointing to his own head, "Got a bandage, no fucking idea what happened but I think it's Mike's fault. You should have been out with us last night, getting fucked up, I haven't seen you drunk and that seems like," he looked down at his hands and toyed with the old fabric of his hospital gown, "- wrong, somehow. But it's not like we could have before, right? We were kids. I mean, I was drinking back then, but you would have pissed your tiny shorts at the idea."

The quiet was wearing on nerves he didn't know he had.

"I just want to shake you right now." Richie added, but the truth was that he wanted to crawl into the bed with him. He wanted to get under the covers and move up against Eddie's side, he wanted to put his arm over him and pull him close and have him up against his chest, he wanted to bury his face into Eddie Kaspbrak's hair and pray to a God he wasn't sure he believed in, but he couldn't bring himself to say any of it out loud, not even with Eddie unconscious, not with the marginal risk he might hear him. 

Bedside confessions weren't going to happen, he wasn't that guy, he couldn't be that guy, even if this could be his last chance to say something. 

Richie sat with his fingers against his mouth and watched Eddie, studying his features, committing them to memory in a way he hadn't had the chance to before, feeling like a creep for doing it but simultaneously helpless to the urge.

"I think you're gonna wake up." he said, standing up again and making a second approach, his hand hovering over Eddie, "Because I saw you wake up when I was getting mind-fucked. It sounds fucking ridiculous but I had a beard when it happened, so I'm not gonna shave, just in case." he swallowed against a tight throat, letting his hand move into Eddie's hair, combing his fingers through to get rid of the lines left in it, "I'm just fixing this, okay? It looks stupid."

He stepped away and laced his fingers against the back of his neck.

"You're gonna wake up." he said finally, "Yeah."

He crossed paths with Bill on his way out and watched Denbrough's eyes travel over him, taking in the combination of his hospital gown and boxers - the latter of which were covered in a micro-print of bright red rocket ships - before meeting his gaze.

"He's fucking boring." Richie said, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder as he passed by and he felt Bill's eyes were still on him but he didn't look back, feeling as though he would give something away if he did.

"Nice shorts." Bill said.

"Stop harassing me, Denbrough." Richie replied.

"Richie." Bill said, and Tozier paused, turning his head slightly to acknowledge him, "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm good." he said.

"It's just when you'd ask-asked if Bev and I had been seeing anything -"

"I was just checking that you two weren't crazy or anything." Richie interrupted, risking looking at Bill to see if he'd bought it, but it was plain on his face that he hadn't, "I'm good, man."

Bill nodded and waited until Richie was out of sight before he went into Eddie's room and sat down beside him, wondering how he hadn't figured it out twenty-seven years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on Twitter @BoWritesMore


	4. Bikini Shirt

* * *

_"Oh, we'd have to be way more fucked up for that conversation."_

_"Okay."_

_"Wait, what?"_

* * *

  
**20 Hours Ago**

"So you were like, stalking us, right?" Richie asked, prodding another empty shot glass slowly away from himself until it clicked against the row that was sitting on the other side of the table. He rested his chin on the surface afterwards, leaving his arms stretched out across it like a steamrolled cartoon character, one that would get blown away if it encountered a gust of wind. Mike pictured it - Richie flowing across the bar like a ribbon and drifting under the gap beneath the door - and then he thought about what it would _really_ look like, his brain providing him with the vivid image of his friend crushed to death. He closed his eyes and drummed his fingers against his temple as though he might be able to knock the intrusive thought out. He reminded himself to be normal.

"What?" Mike asked, finally looking again and finding Richie peering at him, eyes narrowed behind his cracked glasses.

"I didn't give you my number." Richie clarified, obscenely fingering one of the shot glasses for absolutely no reason and it took Mike a moment to catch up with the conversation again, his attention span chemically damaged. He didn't know how long they had been there but there had been daylight coming in through the dusty windows when they had started and now there wasn't.

"But you gave it to plenty of talent agents and club owners." 

"Wow, I don't think you even _meant_ to roast me there." Richie drawled, impressed, "Okay, creepy, and I guess Bill, Ben, and Bev are obvious, but what about -" he almost said _Uris_ , then remembered through the bourbon haze that it was something he couldn't say, which only left him with one more name and he couldn't say that one either, so he just fell silent and hoped Mike caught on.

"Eddie leaves a lot of pissed off reviews on Yelp." Mike said and then glanced down, lifting his hands from the table because it had begun to tremble; he felt his anxiety begin to unfold, the familiar numbing sensation of dread beginning to move through him because something wasn't _right_ -

\- and then he realized it was because Richie was silently laughing, his whole body shaking. It wasn't the world ending, it wasn't Derry sinking beneath them, he wasn't crazy. 

"Oh god," Richie wheezed out, sitting up and rocking back in his seat, slapping his hand on his knee, "Oh god, of course he does - ' _one star, I was allergic to everything here and the wallpaper gave me gout_ '." he pulled his arms in towards his chest, hugging himself as though trying to contain his mirth and Mike watched with quiet adoration, warmth blossoming in his chest at the relatively normal, wonderful sight of Richie Tozier in tears from laughing at his own joke. When he tapered off into whimpers, he was able to speak in a wavering voice, "You got his email from that or what?"

"I pretended to be a restaurant owner who wanted to talk to him, so he sent me his number." Mike admitted.

"Fuck, that's funny." Richie hiccuped, wiping his face on the sleeve of his Zappa t-shirt before he asked, "So, you ever get laid here?"

Hanlon stared at him, momentarily stunned by the sudden shift in conversation.

"Are you offering?" Mike asked finally and then it was Richie's turn to freeze, not having expected that particular parry, so Hanlon was able to watch Richie's gears turn, his usual wry look replaced temporarily with something open and fond - it was just what happened whenever Tozier got thrown off balance, like a hard reset.

"I _am_ pretty happy to see you." Richie admitted in a rare candid moment, looking down at his drink, embarrassed by himself. He flapped a hand, rotating it on the wrist in a gesture towards _everything in general_ , "You know, when we're not all screaming and pissing ourselves."

"I didn't piss myself." 

"Oh I did, like three times." Richie said, finding his stride again, "Just no one could tell because it was fucking -" he picked at the label on his beer, "- _gross_ down there."

"It was gross down there." Mike repeated, watching Richie's eyes flick back up to him, questioning, "Everything that happened down there, the descriptor you settle on is 'gross'?"

"Yeah, it was gross, man. It was -" Richie paused, pulling the lever on his mental train, visibly switching tracks, " _You should've seen the dog, dude_." he said suddenly, slamming his palms on the table and sounding so awed that Mike's face split into a big, white smile, "No, don't laugh," he said, knowing it would have the opposite effect and then both of them were grinning at each other, "No, it's not funny." he insisted, his voice turning into a high-pitched squeak, his eyes beading with tears as he tried to stop himself from laughing, but it was no good for either of them, they were too tired and too drunk, it was too late in the day and the week had been too long, so all he got out was:

"It was inside-out." 

And then they both dissolved into laughter, a combination of Richie's hysterical tittering and Mike's booming guffaw. In the midst of it, they came to the unspoken agreement that it was time to leave, putting money on the bar before staggering up the steps into the lukewarm night, both of them still flushed with hysteria when they were simultaneously jolted back to the reality of where they were.

Right. 

Derry.

For a while they didn't talk, they just walked, and then Richie said:

"There's a _sinkhole_ here now."

And then they had to sit down on the sidewalk because they were inexplicably in stitches again, Richie with his face in his hands and Mike leaning hard to one side. The walk to the library should have taken twenty minutes at most but took them thirty-five instead, their inebriated gaits and bursts of desperate joy staggering them along the way. 

Once they were inside Mike's place, Richie peered around and said:

"You should AirBnB this." 

"Really?" Mike looked at Richie, who stared back at him with his hands in his pockets, suddenly not sure if it was a surprise to Hanlon that his home was a piece of shit, but he seemed to forget about it a moment later, moving to the kitchen, "I'm pretty sure I still have a bottle of whiskey around."

When he had the bottle in his hand - it had been set aside in a floor-level cupboard with a ribbon still on it, a gathering of dust on its shoulders, and a tag that said _Happy 30th_ \- he found Richie looking out the window with the lights from the fair reflecting off of his glasses. For an unguarded instant, his exhaustion was palpable and Mike he realized he couldn't ask him about the deadlights after all because as much as he wanted to know - needed to know - he was suddenly certain that if Richie had to talk about it, it would hurt him. 

Richie did a double-take, realizing how close Mike was on the second glance and reeling back slightly.

" _Ask_ when you wanna spoon me, Hanlon."

Mike considered this as he cracked open the bottle.

"Well, am I the big spoon or the little spoon?" he asked.

"We'd have to have a competition to figure that out and I think then it just gets homoerotic." Richie said, "So it probably works itself out at that point."

"Got it." Mike said, turning to the window to look at the same view he'd had for twenty years, struck by the sudden thought that he didn't know what he was going to do, or what he even meant by that.

"I never went on that wheel before." Richie pointed at it, "You go on the wheel before?"

"I've been on the wheel before. I took a date on the wheel."

"You took a date on the wheel?" Richie repeated, looking at him, excited about the gossip, "So you _did_ get laid here. Did you get laid on the wheel?" he always had to push it a little further.

"Only white people can get away with that kind of shit." Mike pointed out and Richie inclined his head in agreement, "She was a historian working on her PhD, she wanted to read about Ironworks."

"Ironworks?" Richie repeated, face creasing slightly with the effort of memory, then it sank in and Mike was fascinated by the moments he could see any of them remembering, a part of him guiltily warmed by the idea it meant that they were back with him just a little more each time, "Right, yeah. Shit, I forgot about that." Every Derry kid knew about the Ironworks explosion and had heard about how people had been turned into human jigsaw puzzles by it. He couldn't think about it any longer, so he said, "She cute?"

"She was cute." Mike said, nodding and smiling at the ground, "And busy, so -" he shifted on the spot, lifting his shoulders in a sheepish little shrug and it made Richie want to reach out and pat his face: cute.

"Right, yeah, plus no one's gonna stay in Derry." Richie added, then realized his fuck up and instead of being ashamed like most people he added, "Except you, you know, since you're stupid."

"Yeah." Mike laughed and Richie watched him drink right from the bottle. 

"I _do_ think you're stupid." Richie insisted, keeping such a straight face that Hanlon choked on the mouthful, spraying them both and Richie grinned when he was spattered with bourbon, watching Mike with his eyes watering from getting fifteen-year-old whiskey up his nose, simultaneously trying to cough and apologize. Richie patted him on the back, enjoying his suffering but also recognizing that this was a moment of weakness he could exploit, so he added, "You're a good person, Mikey." 

Mike looked at him through reddened, watering eyes, visibly confused.

"I was pissed at you outside the restaurant and then - you know, most of the time I was here, and then _definitely_ when we were underground and about to die, I was super fucked off then, but I'm not pissed at you now and I just wanted to tell you that." he said, uncomfortable with his earnesty but aware that he was better off getting it out now because chances were he wouldn't do it while he was sober, "You gave up a lot, staying here." he became suddenly aware of the hard heat of Mike's back muscles under his palm and he pulled his hand back like he had been burnt, pushing it into his pocket instead, temporarily furious with himself.

"I -" Mike said, then didn't seem to know how to finish the sentence because Richie wasn't wrong, but it felt just as wrong to agree, so he pointed at Richie and said, "I'm taking you on the wheel." He picked up a book bag and stuffed the whiskey into it, leading them to the door.

"Oh hey, great, you want me to pretend I know a lot about history when we get up to the top?" Richie asked as he trailed after him, "We can roleplay that I have a PhD."

* * *

"I have to close one eye." Richie said; he was levering a dart up and trying to aim but his vision kept swimming because they had gotten a little enthusiastic with the bourbon on their way there. Tozier stood with one hand on the counter for support, trying to focus on the balloons pinned on the far wall. When he finally threw the dart, it went high and bounced off the frame of the booth and the woman behind it gave him an openly unimpressed look, so he said: "I feel like you're judging me."

"I _am_ judging you." she agreed, "That was really bad."

"Oh." Richie said, picking up his drink, which was the colour of window cleaner, the size of a healthy infant, and contained a week's worth of sugar, "Well, thanks for being honest." 

Mike moved up beside him to look at his handiwork and it took him a few seconds to focus, examining the backboard loaded down with baseball-sized balloons and wondering if Richie had experienced the same unpleasant jolt as him at the sight. The carnival had seemed like a good idea when they had been at the library but now that they were there, it was like he could feel the lights in his chest. Mike felt twitchy and uneasy but he wasn't going to say it out loud - it was just that he was drunk and he hadn't been in a long time. It was just that the fair was a little disorienting. That was all it was.

"Not the best shot." 

"I'm a comedian, not an Olympic archer." Richie said, offering his straw to Mike, who saw the colour of the drink and shook his head before paying two dollars for the game.

"I remember when this cost a quarter." Mike said as he picked up the darts, examining their ragged points, the very tips of them sawed off long ago; the woman behind the booth saw him looking but neither of them said anything, going along with the grift as though it wasn't there.

"Yeah, that's because we're fucking old." Richie said, wandering away from the booth a few feet to watch the ferris wheel, the lumbering ride throwing rainbow light over the area and Richie looked down at his violet hands, drunkenly marveling. He lost track of time admiring the glow right up until there was a bang behind him and he jolted hard, his shoulders going up to his ears, his heart jumping in his chest before he turned to see Mike looking vaguely pleased with himself. In the booth, his dart was buried deep in the wall, the remnants of a green balloon around it. 

Anything was a weapon if Mike threw it hard enough.

"You came here as a kid right?" Mike asked while Richie shuffled around, the damp grass squeaking under his canvas shoes as he tried to remember details from thirty-plus years ago.

"Not really." he said.

"I thought this would be your thing." Mike said, thumb flicking over the end of another dart before he put his back into it, aiming for a red one and feeling a kind of grim satisfaction in watching it burst, aware of how clammy his hands were, "All the chaos."

"Hey, if you want to look at overall shit-disturbing, that was Denbrough or Kaspbrak, I was just _loud_." Richie pointed out, watching Mike aim, his arm muscles flexing under the cobalt haze of the Ferris wheel lights, "No man, I never came here because -" he turned when he caught a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye and then he pointed and yelled, " _Clown_!" 

Several things happened at once and Richie couldn't have said what any of them were, but he was suddenly freezing cold and his ears were ringing. A skinny carnival clown in orange coveralls stared back at him from across the grass, pausing in the middle of making a balloon animal to look at him in abject horror - which occurred to Richie as kind of funny - then he looked down at the splash of blue on the front of his shirt and nasally said:

"Spilled my slushie."

Then he turned and found both Mike and the woman behind the booth staring at him with their hands on their mouths.

"Richie," Mike began, his hands a great deal sweatier now, his eyes slightly wild.

"I think I have a dart in my head." Richie concluded and Mike couldn't get across the grass in time to stop him from tearing it out where it had gone sideways into his scalp, opening up a two-inch gash that immediately began to stream rivulets of blood.

"I am so sorry." Mike was saying but Richie was busy trying to walk away, "Richie, where are you going?"

"The ferris wheel." Richie pointed out, directed by a mix of alcohol, shock, and the knee-jerk compulsion to do what he thought would be funnier, even when it wasn't.

"Man, you're bleeding bad." Hanlon said, trying to wrangle him, "There's a first aid booth -"

"Where'd the clown go?" Richie asked, suddenly remembering the problem and trying to turn on the spot, but Hanlon's big hands grabbed his shoulders hard, "You saw a clown right? Am I going fucking crackers? There was a clown -"

"It was a normal clown." Mike said.

"Did you throw a dart at me?" Richie asked, only just putting two and two together as he was steered through the carnival, Maine residents staring as they passed by.

"I didn't mean to throw a dart at you, but I threw a dart at you." Mike said hurriedly, wishing to God for spontaneous sobriety.

"Hey, Mikey, what's red, blue, and shitfaced?" Richie asked, pressing his sugar-sticky hand to his head wound.

"Is it you?" Mike asked as he ushered Tozier into the first aid booth.

"It's me!" Richie crowed, then looked at his hand, which was saturated in blood and said, "Holy shit." 

* * *

The spot where the blood and slushie intersected on Richie's shirt had turned purple-brown and the effect was disturbing. Mike raided one of the souvenir booths and only managed to find a single shirt that fit someone their height and then Tozier changed in the park bathroom, going into a stall while Mike waited by the sink.

"I'm so sorry."

"You said that already." Richie pointed out.

"That's because I'm really sorry."

"Hey, was that woman actually a nurse? Because it feels like she gave me a face lift."

"She worked in the hospital when we were kids, so the short answer is yes." Mike said; politely put, the woman at the first aid booth had been of _advanced age_ , her hands comprised of bird bones and tissue paper.

"She looked the way dust smells." Richie said, kicking open the door to the stall for effect, stretching out his arms to put himself on display, seeing his own reflection in the mirror and then pointedly ignoring it: he looked like shit, no surprise, but he couldn't feel a thing. Alcohol was magical.

"I'm so sorry." Mike repeated gently, this time because of the shirt.

"What?" Richie said, stretching the bright yellow polyester away to look at it, delighted, "It looks so _flammable_." 

"Oh god, don't say that like it's an upside." Mike put his face in his hands, "I can't believe this."

"I kind of can, it's just usually I'd be the one who fucked up." Richie pointed out, then decided he probably needed to stop roasting Hanlon so hard, the guy seemed like he was ready to fold in on himself, so he said, "If I give you a head wound we can call it another blood bond, but I don't think I have your aim." He didn't know how to stop himself, it was a problem, so he reached into the bag for the whiskey and paused when his fingers hit something soft. He pulled it out part way and the unhinged-looking face of a toy frog looked back at him, so Richie pulled it out of the bag entirely, a beanbag body with skinny foot-long legs and he said, "I feel like this is an insulting rendering of me."

"I made the first two shots with the darts." Mike pointed out, "I was gonna -"

There was a long, long pause and Richie realized Mike was going to put the huge, stupid stuffed frog into Eddie Kaspbrak's bed - kid comfort for an adult version of him, pointless and drunkenly well-intentioned and so sentimental that Richie didn't know what to do with it, because he was thinking of Eddie as a kid, and then Stan as a kid, and then all the times they had needed kid comfort in dark places - and he couldn't let the thought go any further than that because he could feel his throat going tight. He got the bottle out of the bag, gesturing with it, forming his mouth into a happy line and Mike couldn't bring himself to say that they probably shouldn't drink more because he could easily see Richie's point.

They got as far as the Kissing Bridge when Mike said:

"I'm gonna get Ben to pick us up."

"What?" Richie asked, his eyes pinned on the bridge before he looked over at Mike, "Why? It's not that far to the library."

"But the hotel is far enough." Mike said, "Trust me, you don't want to sleep it off in my place."

Mike was right, his place was creepy, but the idea of going back to the Derry Townhouse made him feel like he was going to grind his teeth down to dust. 

"I think I've still got too much party left in me." he said.

Hanlon looked over at him, watching Richie standing by the railing and looking out at nothing, so he joined him elbow-to-elbow, never losing a chance to make contact with his friends. Mike would never say it out loud, but there was something anchoring about it - when he was touching someone, he felt real. 

It wasn't the kind of thing he could tell anyone because it barely made sense to him.

"Alright." Mike said, because Tozier was making a plea to stay out a little longer, which meant he _needed_ to stay out longer - even if the smart thing to do would be to go to the hospital or the hotel - and besides, Richie wasn't going anywhere unwillingly. They had already tried to wrangle him once and had discovered that he was surprisingly sturdy, offering up passive resistance when they'd tried to get him back to the hotel, his dirty shoes squeaking on the hospital floor. 

"You're gonna leave Derry, right?" Richie asked, passing the bottle, watching him drink from it.

"Yeah, yeah I'm gonna leave." 

In unison, they put their elbows on the railing and their chins on their hands; neither of them noticed. Richie drank from the bottle, Mike drank from the bottle, they passed it back and forth in silence before Richie said:

"We're all gonna need therapy."

"Not that we can really talk about any of it with a therapist." Mike pointed out; Richie made a hum of consideration like it hadn't really occurred to him, but he knew Richie didn't really intend to go to therapy either.

"Guess not."

" _We_ could talk about it." Mike offered, only just managing to keep himself from sounding hopeful.

"Well, you have my number." Richie said wryly, surprised at the slow, warm smile that crawled over Mike's face, like he'd just given him the best possible news and he didn't understand it, but he wasn't going to question it.

"You back on tour after this?" 

"Fuck, right." Richie put his hands in his hair and then thought better of it, his head pulsing and stinging, "I keep forgetting I have responsibilities and shit - I don't know what I'm doing after this, the tour dates are fucked."

"You could still -" Mike began, knowing it was weak but feeling he had to point it out anyways.

"- go?" Richie asked; they held each others' gaze, "I'll think about it."

Mike knew that was _all_ Richie would do - he wouldn't cross the town boundary because he couldn't leave until Eddie did. 

Tozier drank deeply and then inhaled audibly afterwards, idly tracing one of dozens of roughly-carved initials on the bridge with his thumb, his face thoughtful before he turned, put his back to the railing, and sat down. Mike was reliably with him a few seconds later.

"We're all gonna be okay, right?" Mike asked.

"Probably not." Richie said immediately, "I mean, we'll probably be pretty fucked up over this. You especially."

Mike didn't even look offended, he just nodded.

"Hey Mike," Richie said, picking up a stone from beside him and tossing it across the bridge, staring at some dark spots on the ground.

"Yeah?"

"I need to say something out loud and I need you to never repeat it." 

"Is this something you should say out loud while really, really drunk?" Mike asked, feeling like his tongue was half a size too big, his words clumsy. 

"Probably not." Richie admitted, "I think I'm just experiencing false clarity and I'll regret it tomorrow, which is why you have to never repeat it. Ever. I want to pretend this conversation never happened."

"Alright." Mike said, carefully passing the bottle back to Richie.

* * *

Ben Hanscom was

He didn't have an adjective. 

He'd been trying to figure out how he felt for the better part of a day but his feelings were largely inaccessible, as though that part of him had powered down. He knew himself well enough that he could infer that he was probably relieved and scared and sad but he didn't have the ability to engage with any of those things just yet because he hadn't been alone long enough.

He had spent the better part of the day at the hospital, each of them pulling shifts, watching over Eddie _just in case_ but none of them ever said out loud what it was in case of.

The call had come while he had been sitting on one side of Kaspbrak and Bev had been sitting on the other and they had been staring at each other, saying nothing. It wasn't that they had nothing to say because they had twenty-seven years of things to say to each other but it wasn't the right time and it wasn't the right place. They were waiting for something and that was fine, even if a part of him wanted to scream because there had been so much waiting already, even if he was tired to his bones of waiting when she was right in front of him.

He felt her eyes track him to the door.

"Can I bring you anything?" he asked, turning to look at her and finding himself shy beneath her unfaltering gaze - it made him feel like he was being cracked open, but somehow it was in a way he liked. Bev smiled like she knew it and his face went hot, so she smiled even wider and then he smiled back and felt like he was in the schoolyard all over again, about to drop his diorama.

"No." she said finally, still smiling.

Ben's shoulder bumped into the door frame on his way out and when he got in the car, he drove the first few minutes in silence before it occurred to him to put the radio on, giving it a chastising look when _What'cha Gonna Do_ started playing, but he left it on anyways. There was no traffic so he was able to let his mind drift the way he always did when driving, willing himself to think about _good things_ , but it seemed so nebulous in the face of the very specific _bad things_ standing inside his head and he couldn't seem to see past them. 

He opened the windows on either side of him so he could breathe again, his hands clammy on the wheel. He knew that in theory life could resume again, but as long as he was in Derry, he felt like it was planning to close in on him. He felt like he was in a giant bear trap.

Ben pulled to the side of the road before the Kissing Bridge and he saw his friends just beyond the halo of a street light. Mike tried to stand from the curb and wave at the same time, only to lose his balance and end up sitting again; beside him, Richie kicked a leg out, laughing with his whole body, still audible when he got out of the car. 

"What have you kids been up to?" Ben asked, convivial and self-conscious at the same time, pushing his hands into his pockets and unconsciously curling his shoulders in an effort to make himself small and contained.

"Fucking the town up." Mike said, because he had tilted from Drunk to Extremely Drunk. 

"Mike is drunk." Richie pointed out.

"Why aren't you?" Mike asked, examining the lean contents of the whiskey bottle.

"Oh, I'm shitfaced." Richie said cheerfully, "I can't feel anything right now, it's amazing. Benny I need you to help me lift this side of beef."

"Am I the side of beef?" Mike asked.

"I think you're the side of beef." Ben said.

"Beef!" Mike said, then put his fists in the air and Richie almost wept with joy because he was going to be able to shout _beef_ at Mike Hanlon for the rest of their lives. Tozier took one side and Ben took the other and together they managed to get Mike to his feet, his height allowing him to slouch slightly on them, his heavy arms over their shoulders and he squeezed them both in towards his chest in a show of inebriated affection. Richie and Ben smilingly exchanged looks and then Hanscom's eyes traveled up to the bandage, his expression shifting.

"Hey, what -" Ben began and then Mike pressed a kiss to his temple, almost throwing all three of them off balance on their way to the car because Richie was having trouble walking and laughing at the same time.

"Handsome Hanscom." Mike declared as he was loaded into the passenger seat and Richie got into the back.

"I think probably the hotel." Ben said and Richie nodded emphatically, unscrewing the cap on the bourbon and taking another mouthful before he stuffed the bottle into the bag again. Mike pressed his head to the window frame and dozed with the night air on his face for the duration of the ride, only stirring when Ben opened the door outside of the Derry Townhouse, "Hey big guy, time to stand."

"Hi Ben." Mike said as though he hadn't seen him in years and Ben knew it was just that Hanlon was drunk, but he felt his heart break a little anyways. 

"Hi Mike." Richie said, sidling up next to him.

"Damn, that's a bad shirt." Mike replied, easing out of the car and allowing them to direct him into the hotel, taking their time on the way up the stairs. Richie split off in the hallway while Ben pushed open the door to his room. 

Mike peered in and said: "I can't go in there."

"It's fine, I'm going to be at the hospital tonight anyways." Ben said, guiding Mike into the room, then onto the bed.

"Hey Ben?" 

"Yeah?" Ben asked, unlacing Mike's shoes.

"Do you think I'm crazy?" Mike asked and Hanscom twisted around to look at him, his puppy dog face lined with concern; it made Mike want to take it back, to un-ask the question somehow.

"I think you had a lot of whiskey tonight, is what I think." Ben said, setting Hanlon's shoes on the ground, "And I think you need to sleep." he leaned his elbows on his knees, watching Mike before he added, "No, I don't think you're crazy."

"I'm sorry." Mike said, "For calling."

"Don't apologize for that." Ben said getting up and pulling blankets over Hanlon, "How about we go for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Yeah, alright." Mike said, then added, "'Lotta balloons."

"At the fair?" Ben asked, amused. 

Mike looked very serious for a second, then smiled warmly.

"Yeah." he said.

"Goodnight, Mike." Ben said as he headed out.

"Goodnight." Mike said, watching him go before his eyes slowly dragged up to the ceiling, which was crowded tight with red balloons, their strings slowly swinging from where Ben had passed through. Mike turned over in bed so he didn't have to look at them and then he went to sleep.

In the morning, a goldfinch trilled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore


	5. It Got In

Beverly Marsh had spent her entire life bracing herself for sleep. 

She could remember all of the nights she had stayed up, sitting with her back to the wall beneath the window in her bedroom where she could still see the door. Even before the deadlights she'd had reasons not to sleep at night, she didn't like to close her eyes, she didn't like to go away for long, just in case. 

She could suddenly remember the daydream she used to have, about having her own place where she could lean out her window and chain smoke and leave ash on the windowsill and it wouldn't matter at all. That had been all of it: a place that was hers and a window to smoke from.

Tom didn't like it when she smoked. 

Beverly lit another cigarette. 

Of all the places on her body that ached, it was her wrists that hurt the most. It wasn't anything that had happened down in the sewers, it was her wrists that hurt the most and she committed that fact to memory because it wasn't even her worst fears that had caused her the most pain that week.

Bill had traded off with her in the hospital, both of them pausing to inspect each other, their first moment alone together since -

_"I'm sorry." Bill had said._

_"About the kiss?" Bev had asked, leaning in the doorway on one side while Bill leaned on the other. They rested their heads on the frames, they crossed their arms and their ankles, and they watched each other. Finally, Bill nodded, so she said, "I think it was fifty-fifty, Denbrough, I wasn't a passive participant."_

_Bill smiled boyishly, as though he had been chastised and was a little tickled by it. The sight made her chest ache in a way that was foreign and familiar and happy and sad - she had the urge to protect the man in front of her, but maybe that was because she knew how impulsive he could be, how stupidly brave he was, and how deeply hurt he had been. She knew Bill could take care of himself, but she wasn't sure he knew how many people wanted to do it for him, too._

_"Are you going to tell -?" Bev began._

_"Yes." Bill said, "I always tell her."_

_There was a pause as Bev processed this information._

_"Oh." she said finally, more surprised than she meant to let herself sound, "And she -?"_

_"She always tells me." Bill confirmed, "But I should have been mo-more -"_

_"It was the heat of the moment." Bev interrupted, "It was nice, though."_

_"It was nice." Bill agreed._

_"I feel like this is supposed to feel awkward." Bev said and then they smiled at each other and she reached for Bill Denbrough and he always, always took her hand. They stood there for a while, swinging their arms just a little and watching each other and she felt warm with a love she didn't fully understand because it felt new and ancient all at once._

_"It doesn't feel awkward." Bill said._

_"It doesn't feel awkward." Bev agreed._

_"Go get some re-rest." Bill said, slowly releasing her hand, then gently touching her shoulder, then moving into the room where he picked up Eddie's comb and ran it back through his hair again, not yet remembering the way he used to do the same for Georgie._

Bev didn't get rest. She did the opposite.

Midway up the stairs she had seen Ben carefully ushering Mike into his room and she had taken the rest of the steps as quietly as she could, voyeuristically watching him remove Hanlon's shoes for him. She had watched his hands move, his long fingers picking gently at the laces, she had watched his broad back as he twisted on the bed and spoke in low tones with him, she watched him pull the sheets over Mike and she felt her heartbeat in her entire body as she put her back to the wall before they could see her.

She wasn't ashamed to say she had waited for him to come out and had stayed quiet just so she could watch him a little longer; it was only once he had gently shut the door that he became aware of her, surprise shimmering across his face before it shifted to a smile that he aimed at the floor.

"Tonight has been weird." Ben said finally, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and swiveling slowly from side to side.

"Just tonight?" she asked.

"This week has been weird." he amended.

"Bill is poly." Bev said suddenly and Ben looked up at her, his brows knit together in focus, trying to stay with the conversation.

"- like, he has extra toes?" Ben asked, confused and maybe even a little delighted, as though the concept of Bill Denbrough having extra toes had made his night somewhat better. Bev began to laugh and Ben's expression briefly became self-conscious before shifting into good humour, easing out of his anxiety and welcoming the sound of her laughter in its place.

"No." Bev said finally, unwilling to help him further.

"I'm actually really smart." Ben pointed out good-naturedly, holding his index finger in the air as his other hand pulled out his phone and he thumbed out a search; Bev watched the glow of the phone on his face and was able to see the instant when understanding hit him, " _Oh_."

"That's what I said." Bev said.

"Am I supposed to know that about him?" Ben asked and she shrugged: too late, complicit now.

"I like to think of us as a hive mind." she said, "We must be, since Mike managed to steal my idea."

"Hm?" Ben asked, so Bev pointed at the door and he looked at it, focused hard on it for a few seconds, then understood, repeating, "Oh." He smiled at the ground again, his tone a little sing-song, "You're flirting with me."

"I'm flirting with you." Bev confirmed, "But since Hanlon took my spot, how about I flirt with you in my room instead?"

"Yes." Ben said firmly and she led him by his pocket down the hall.

They lost sleep to each other, laying side by side for a while afterwards with their knuckles touching until one of them started it again, both of them privately surprised by the stamina they had found in their forties. She learned that Ben liked when she locked her fingers in his hair and pulled just a little and he liked her mouth on his throat. He learned that she liked it when his calloused fingertips grazed the dimples on her lower back and that she had freckles on her inner thighs. They spent the night learning.

Then they spent the morning drinking coffee in bed, her legs draped over his and then she smoked by the window and he didn't mind, studying her bare body as she lit another cigarette, her bruised wrists aching. On her third cigarette, she began to laugh.

"What?" Ben asked.

"Extra toes." she chuckled and Ben rolled over in bed and stuck his head beneath a pillow, so she approached him and sat on his lower back and drummed softly on his shoulders until he turned and then they took their time.

A little after mid-day they finally showered and Ben went down the hall to check on Mike and Beverly laid down and braced herself for sleep because the nightmares would come, because they always did. 

She dreamt that she was sitting at the table at the Jade of the Orient and she was the only one there, so she put a cigarette in her mouth. When she looked up, Stanley Uris sat across from her in a pressed suit and little wire-rimmed glasses with his hands neatly on the table. Bev stared at him and he stared back and neither of them said anything so she studied him as she picked up the candle, using it to light her cigarette.

She inhaled and then said:

"This is a dream."

"This is a dream." Stan agreed.

"Is this a nightmare?" she asked.

"If it is, then I don't know any more than you do." he pointed out, "This is in your head, I'd only know what you know."

"Right." she exhaled and nothing came out, so she glanced at her cigarette, then glanced at Stan, who was surrounded by a plume of smoke. Experimentally, she drew on it again, inhaling slowly, holding it while he watched her and when she exhaled, it rose around him again, coming out of his mouth and nose and ears. He didn't seem to notice, but when he adjusted his sleeves, she realized it was coming from there as well, so she carefully stubbed it out, plainly announcing, "This is a nightmare." she placed her hands on the table as well, leaning forward, "So what happens next?"

"Eddie dies in his sleep." Stan said and Bev felt as though her chest had just opened up and become a cold, bottomless pit. She couldn't speak suddenly, familiar terror running through her, "Eddie dies in his sleep." he repeated, "Eddie dies in his sleep and Richie can't take it, and then Mike can't take it after that."

She shook her head, he nodded.

"It got in." Stan said and then Beverly looked down at the cold pit in her chest and saw it was really there, that it had opened up and become a black chasm like the one on Neibolt. When she looked up again, Stan was right in front of her and he was reaching in, his hand entering the pit inside of her and his voice was very gentle, almost apologetic, "Like an infection." His arm was in her sternum up to the elbow and she could feel it and it wasn't real.

"This isn't real." she said out loud, grabbing at the table and Stan was so close that they were nose-to-nose and his eyes were round and worried and his fingers were on her ribcage from the inside.

"Does it matter anymore?" Stan asked.

"This is a nightmare." she said through her teeth.

"This is a nightmare." Stan agreed as he pulled her lung out and Bev woke up screaming, clawing at her chest and kicking in the bed until her back was against the headboard. 

Then there came the smell of cologne, warm and sweet, and Ben Hanscom's arms were around her and her face was in his chest, so she gripped his shirt and he said nothing when she couldn't stop herself from letting out another scream, like it had been stuck in her somewhere.

Ben held on.

* * *

Neither of them had gotten to the store so they split a cigarette, Bev passing it to Richie, Richie passing it to Bev. The day was dying in front of them and they watched it happen while standing in the hospital parking lot, Richie with new sutures and a fresh bandage, shamelessly bare foot in a hospital gown and boxers. He had been forced to cart an I.V. stand with him and had paused every few minutes on their way to the smoke pit in order to pretend that it was a dog stopping to take a piss. It got old by the third time he did it, but by the fourth it was funny again somehow and he seemed to know it would be.

"So," Richie began.

"I had four orgasms last night." Bev said, heading him off at the pass and Richie lapsed back into silence, marveling over this for a time. Bev smiled to herself.

"Is that why you're walking like John Wayne?" he asked.

"It's what happens when you ride a stallion." she said and Richie's delighted grin could have pushed the sun back up into her sky.

"Finally." Richie said and Bev deeply considered telling him that he was one to talk, but then she realized it was the kind of joke she couldn't make because it wasn't funny when it was an open wound. She unconsciously placed her hand on her sternum and his eyes tracked the movement, then focused for a long time on her wrist before bouncing up to her face and he asked, "Hey, are you okay?"

"What? Yeah." Bev lied and he caught it because you can't fake a faker, but he afforded her the same veil she had given him and let it pass this time.

"I miss Stan." Richie replied and Bev felt the world lurch because it seemed like he had taken something from inside of her head; she hoarded the cigarette for a moment in order to give herself time to recover.

"I dreamt about him." Bev said.

"Yeah?" Richie asked, toying carefully with his I.V. line, "Where?"

She didn't know why, but the question made her examine him.

"Where was he in the dream?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"At the Jade of the Orient." she said, catching on, "Where was he in yours?"

Richie looked suddenly nervous and fragile and she could see what she had dreamed about again and again, Stan in the bath and blood on the wall.

"I can't remember." Richie mumbled, then gestured with his I.V, "You want a sip?"

"I already had my saline infusion today." she said; both of them were too in love with each other to keep hiding things but hurting too much to continue the conversation, so they let it go together. Bev stubbed out the butt of the cigarette with the toe of her shoe and said, "I'll pick you up a pack when I'm out."

"You're the best." Richie said adoringly and they headed back into the hospital and halfway down the hall he looked at her, squinting, and said, "Four?" so she put up four fingers for emphasis and he said, "Now I want to sleep with Ben." And when he put up his hand for a high five, she struck it and they both grinned.

* * *

"I don't need to, though." Mike said. They were sitting in Ben's car and Mike was wringing his hands in a way that made him worried for his fingers, "I feel okay."

"I really think you should." Ben said gently, "With everything that happened, it just makes sense for everyone to get checked out." They had been sitting in the hospital parking lot for fifteen minutes and it had been fine up until he had suggested Hanlon see a doctor - now it seemed like he was shutting down in fractions, disappearing to some place else and Ben didn't know why he said it, but he said, "I think Bill is with Eddie right now."

This seemed to register and Mike perked up perceptibly.

"He could probably use some company." Ben pointed out, "I'll go back to the hotel and see if Richie is there, he hasn't been answering his phone - do you need me to get anything from your place for you?"

Mike considered this for a moment.

"Change of clothes would be good." he admitted, passing his keys to Ben, "Thanks, Ben."

Once he saw Mike go through the doors, he got his phone out.

* * *

Bill set down the nail clippers and Eddie's hand so he could pick up his phone, examining the text: _Can you convince Mike to see a doctor?_ He looked over at Kaspbrak and said:

"You're better at this kind of thing." he picked up Eddie's hand again and held it, studying what he could see of his friend's face; the tubes were jarring and he was certain that if Eddie was conscious, he would have been losing his mind over the cleanliness of them, he would want to know where they had come from, if they had just come out of a new package, who had touched them, how long they had been there. He would have been pleading for everyone to see the doctor the moment they had been out of Neibolt and he would have had a tantrum until they did.

He realized Mike was watching him.

"You're so qui-qu-quiet." Bill said, standing and meeting Mike's eyes; they just stood gazing at each other before crossing the room, putting their arms around each other, and staying that way. He felt Mike's chin on the top of his head as his hands smoothed up the broad plane of Hanlon's back, knowing somehow that it was what he needed and he felt Mike shudder when he exhaled - he must have been looking at Eddie, so Bill said, "You did good, Mikey."

"Almost got us all killed." Mike said, his voice cracking a little, so Bill held him tighter as though he might be able to keep him in one piece that way, like if he squeezed hard enough then he could correct the fissures that were appearing in the man he loved. 

"None of it was your fault." Bill said, "Except when you dru-drugged me."

"It was a root." Mike insisted.

"I feel like saying you 'rooted me' sounds worse." 

"You might have a point." 

They didn't break away from the embrace entirely, instead stepping back a little and still holding each others' arms. Bill looked down at the bag hanging over Mike's arm and then silently reached into it, first pulling out a bottle of whiskey that was down to its last quarter, then pulling out a Zappa t-shirt that looked like it had been through a war, and finally pulling out a toy frog that looked as though it had been designed by someone who had never actually seen a frog before. 

"I gotta wash that." Mike said and Bill thought he meant the shirt, but he took the frog and Bill watched him go, still holding the whiskey and the shirt. Bev entered the room a moment later.

"Where's Mike going?"

"To wash his frog." Bill said and then neither of them said anything for several minutes.

"What." Bev said finally.

"D-do you think Richie is okay?" Bill asked.

_Richie can't take it._

"No." Bev said.

"Do you think Mike is okay?"

_And then Mike can't take it after that._

"Definitely not." Bev said.

They both nodded and lapsed into silence and when Mike appeared again, Bev looked at the frog drooping in his hands, then looked at Bill.

"I thought it was a weird euphemism." she admitted, then moved forward and placed a hand on Mike's cheek and he leaned down so she could place a kiss on his face; afterwards, he crossed the room and very carefully inserted the toy frog under Kaspbrak's left arm and then Bev had to leave the room again because she didn't know if she could hold it together for much longer, watching Mike touch Eddie's face like that. She took the bottle of whiskey with her.

Mike took a seat next to Eddie and after a while, Bill moved his chair around beside him and leaned against Mike. They dozed for an hour before Bill woke up with his head on Mike's shoulder, confused and groggily looking around the room, certain something had woken him up but unclear on what it could have been. He listened to the monitors and machines and the sound of Mike softly breathing.

Then Eddie Kaspbrak made a horrible, rattling noise and began to spasm on the bed.


	6. Trending

Bill sat on the front steps outside of the hospital and stared at the empty parking lot; when he eventually looked over at Mike, he knew by his unfocused expression that he was stuck in a mental loop, so he slid his fingers along the inside of his wrist, drawing slow and soothing circles in the space just below his thumb. He watched as Mike came back to the present, confusion registering on his face when he looked down and found their hands together, his expression shifting into something warm and sad.

"I want to say it'll be okay -" Bill ventured.

"But you can't know that it will be." Mike said, understanding the silence better than anyone. He couldn't get the image out of his head: Eddie seizing on the hospital bed, sudden and violent. They had been pushed out of the room by a crowd of nurses and specialists and it felt like the wail of Kaspbrak's heart monitor had taken up residence in his head. 

It seemed like something was opening inside of him, splaying out in his chest and pushing like it wouldn't stop until he cracked apart and he thought about Neibolt as he placed his hand on the pain.

"I don't know if we should tell the oth-oth-oth-" Bill slammed his free hand down on his thigh, a burst of frustration that he couldn't hold in, the first evidence that Denbrough was falling apart too. He'd always been good at holding it in but there were times it spilled out with intensity, "- others, _fuck_!" he inhaled through his nose, his mouth pulled into a thin line as he shoved his hand back through his hair and Mike looked at the streak of gray that had shot through the crown of it and then his stomach felt strange at the observation, "Until we find out."

Bill hadn't said the exact words but he meant _until we know if Eddie made it_. For an instant, Mike wasn't sure he agreed but then he tried to imagine telling the others that they _didn't know_ if he was dead or alive - like Schrodinger's Kaspbrak - and he realized that all it would do was make them feel more helpless, so he just nodded.

"Where are you going after this?" Bill asked, "You're not gonna stay in that attic, are you?"

"Damn, everyone's got a problem with my place." Mike said, making an effort to play along with fragile casual conversation in the face of their mutual terror. He watched as Bill's expression jerked between shamed and tickled, like a kid being cheeky and knowing they were getting away with it, "Who knows, I might get to Florida after all."

"Still Florida, huh?" Bill drawled, "You said you just _wanted to_ \- but why do you really want to go? No one just wants to go to Fl-florida, Mike. What's there?" He studied Mike's profile, the street lights reflecting off flecks of salt in the pepper of his growing stubble and he watched Mike look down at his shoes, scuffing them gently against the step before he mumbled something and Bill smiled a little, "I didn't catch that."

"There's a lot of museums." Mike lied, taking back his first answer since it hadn't been heard and he felt Bill staring at him so he shut his eyes and he said, "I wanna go to Disney World."

Bill's smile took up a solid quarter of his face.

"You gonna wear the ears?" Bill asked and Mike leaned his elbow on his knee to turn and look at Denbrough with all of the attitude he could summon in a single eyebrow.

"Yeah, you know what, I'm gonna wear the ears. I'm gonna wear the ears and I'm gonna lift my arms on a ride that isn't the Derry Ferris wheel and I'm gonna say 'woo' real loud, then I'm gonna eat things that are bad for me and I'm gonna take a picture with a princess or something." Mike said, watching Bill's expression become progressively more pleased, "You got a problem with that, Denbrough? Because I'm pretty sure if we scrap, I'm gonna win. I bet I can still pick you up."

"Pick me up." Bill challenged, his eyes gleaming, so Mike surged forward and Bill instantly lost his bravado, back-pedaling on the steps with his hands up, shoving his back into the railing while laughing and yelling, "Don't pick me up! _Don't pick me up!_ We're in our forties! We're muh-middle aged! We can't do this! We fell down too much this week!" he was batting Mike's hands away, jerking and almost falling down the remaining two steps in the process of trying to escape Hanlon's powerful grip, feeling childish and hysterical, like the three seconds that came before being caught during hide-and-seek. 

"I've been dead-lifting for twelve years," Mike said over the sound of Bill's maniacal laughter, "I can lift twice my weight, if you think your ass is gonna be a challenge -" Bill got hold of one of his wrists and Mike jolted in his grip, so he released it, realizing he'd gotten a tender spot. A moment later he remembered the injury and how it had happened. 

"Sh-shit, you okay?" Bill asked, still crammed into the railings with his shoulders up to his ears and his palms defensively raised, the collar of his shirt sticking straight up.

"I'm fine, yeah." Mike said, but there was an edge of pain in his voice, so Bill wordlessly unbuttoned the sleeve of Mike's shirt and pushed it down, his face suddenly unhappy and serious as he stared at the bandage.

"I don't know how you and Ri-ri-richie survived this long without us." Bill said.

"Me neither." Mike admitted softly, letting himself be pulled to his feet because he wasn't going to argue with Bill Denbrough, especially not when he was taking his hand.

* * *

Dr. Anders wasn't someone who hid his expressions so his face registered open disbelief followed closely by deadpan acceptance when he found Mike Hanlon and Bill Denbrough behind the curtain, his exhale loud in the otherwise quiet ward.

"The six of you have had quite a week." he said, setting down a clipboard and pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves, "Two birds with one stone, then - Mr. Kaspbrak is stable for now."

Mike let out a sound that made both men look at him in alarm, a strange wheeze that struck Bill as uncannily similar to the way Eddie sounded when he was having an asthma attack and he watched as Hanlon lowered his face into his hands and just sat like that for a while: relief. It was like something had released in Mike now that he knew Eddie was alive and he needed a moment to recover, so Bill placed a careful hand on his back and Anders allowed him the time.

"Wh-what h-ha-happ-hap-?" Bill began, fighting every syllable and growing more visibly frustrated with each effort. If he was being honest with himself, he wanted nothing more than to break down and weep, but Bill wasn't very honest with himself anymore, so the feeling just sat in his throat and stayed.

"Trauma can trigger seizures." Anders said simply, "He's going to need close monitoring for a while, his heart stopped and we don't know if that's going to have consequences for him, especially considering what his body has been through." He eyed both of them, a moment where he considered asking for more details but what he'd been given so far had been four different versions and then Tozier had just told him a knock-knock joke, so he suspected he wasn't going to get anything useful from them.

It would be a case that would occasionally eat at him for the rest of his career.

While they absorbed the information, Dr. Anders peeled back the bandage on Hanlon's arm and then let out another sigh.

* * *

_"How are you holding up?"_

Ben leaned against the wall in the hallway of the Derry Townhouse with his phone to his ear and Bill Denbrough's soothing voice on the other end, letting his eyes close while he had the privacy to do so, only to realize he didn't want the privacy after all. He was alone in the building and wished he wasn't: he wanted daylight in the night, he wanted life around him, he wanted open air and people, he wanted big windows, he wanted Bev in his arms, he wanted his friends.

He wanted some fucking nachos.

He felt immediately guilty.

"I'm good, yeah." Ben said and the pause that came after was deafening so he tried to amend to the truth, only to realize he still wasn't sure what the truth was, "I'm -" he hesitated over it, "I don't know how I'm holding up." 

"It's ok not to know." Bill said and Ben knew he understood, but neither of them knew how to talk about it more than that.

"I'm going to pick up a few things for Mike but I'm looking for Richie, have you seen him?" Ben asked.

"He got admitted for observation." Bill said.

"He does his best work with an audience so I hope the hospital is prepared for that." Ben replied and they both smiled a little, "And Mike -?"

"Him too." 

"Good." Ben said, sagging against the wall.

"Mike mentioned - mentioned - he mentioned he has some medications he needs, you think you can pick those up too?" Bill asked.

"Sure, yeah. How about you, Bill, can I -?"

"I'm okay." Bill said softly; there was another pause and then, "So you and Bev -?"

"Uh," Ben said, covering his face with his hand - he hadn't been prepared for it to come up, but maybe he should have been given they hadn't exactly been subtle, "Yeah."

"Finally." Bill teased, then added, "She made the first move, didn't she?"

"You guys are relentless." Ben said shyly.

"M-maz-mazel tov." Bill said.

"Thanks, Bill." 

When they hung up, Ben went into Richie's room with the intention of gathering a few of his things, only to discover there wasn't anything to gather. There was only a single small bag and it looked like he hadn't unpacked anything except for a gray t-shirt that had been left on one of the pillows. He took Richie's things with him and drove to the library, which only occurred to him as a terrible idea once he was standing inside and faced with the silence.

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Ben scuffed slowly through the space; it was different from what he remembered, but then he had only started remembering it a couple of days ago. He could recall spending endless hours there, reading about anything that kept him in the world inside his head, where the walls were sturdy and secure and made by him. He let his fingers run over the worn spines of hardbound books and then stood staring at the dried blood in the centre of the floor, a distant superstitious part of him not wanting to walk past it. Eventually he made himself move, but his heart was thrumming in his chest as he went down the dark hall that took him up to Mike's place, which was -

\- well, it was a nightmare. Or it was his nightmare, anyways.

The space was small and dim and cramped and Ben had only been standing inside for seconds before he felt the loneliness like a weight, so he went to the window with the back of his neck prickling with nervous sweat and opened it for air, staring out at the carnival lights. Mike had spent most of his life in the space Ben was standing in and he felt as though he would have to steel himself to really look at it. When he finally did, he stayed close to the window, turning to look over the contents of his friend's home, stacks of books and decades of notes and not much else. He didn't have to look hard to recognize that everything surrounding him had been preparation for when It came back and he imagined what it had to have been like, waiting so long to make phone calls he didn't want to make. 

Hanscom could feel the guilt in the walls and he thought about the moment in the cistern when Mike had stopped moving, when he had just _given up_ because he thought he had killed them all and then Ben had to locate a chair to deal with the painful new understanding that he was sitting inside of a grave, because he was suddenly certain that Mike had resigned himself to being buried in Derry.

* * *

Richie had to shut the sound off when he turned his phone on because the last few days had begun to register on the network, the cracked screen lighting up as e-mails and voicemails and texts and notifications rolled in. He sat on the edge of the hospital bed with his shirt halfway on, wearing the expression of a man only just beginning to understand how deeply fucked he is. His first thought was that it had to be about the tour dates he had missed: they must have been messages from pissed off club-owners and furious ticket-holders.

For a moment he tried to conceive of how his career would recover from it all but then he realized he couldn't make himself actually care. It was simultaneously freeing and disturbing because he had spent the last decade of his life fixated on advancing, often getting paid in beer and pizza for acts in shitty night clubs no one went to, being the last on stage in bars with exhausted audiences, flopping again and again until he got it right and then when he finally, finally did, they told him to rebrand and -

_Check Twitter trending._

It was a flash, the preview of a text, but Richie did what it said.

_#PokemonGo_  
_#Euro2016_  
_#PrayersForTozier_  
_#GameOfThrones_

His picture came up, a professional shot done years ago with the headline beneath it: **MISSING**. It had been retweeted thousands of times and he sat watching the number change before he risked scrolling through.

_#PrayersForTozier saw him in 2015, great show, he completely destroyed a heckler, hope he turns up soon._

  
_He must have gone into hiding after last week's show. #PrayersForTozier tho._

  
_Talked to him in a dumpling shop last month, weird but nice, took a picture with me, hope he's OK. #PrayersForTozier_

  
_#PrayersForTozier my husband and I have seen him four times and he was really off during the last show, we thought it was weird - he seemed upset, anyone know about that?_

  
_#PrayersForTozier that he hires a new writing team if they find him. Material got really bad. Maybe he's in rehab? Comedians all do cocaine._

  
_Had tickets to his New York show for months, got a refund which is nice, but I hope I can buy tickets again in the future - worried. #PrayersForTozier_

  
_#PrayersForTozier to hurry up and kill himself already. Second time could be the charm, Richie._

He threw his phone across the bed and backed away from it, putting his back to the wall, his heart thumping hard and he jolted when he saw movement, looking to the doorway and experiencing a surge of relief and embarrassment when he saw Bill standing there with a cardboard tray of take-out coffee cups.

"Are they discharging you?" he asked slowly, his clever eyes moving searchingly around the room, inspecting their surroundings for an explanation for the look on his friend's face.

"Yeah," Richie said, forcing himself away from the wall on shaky legs, buttoning up his shirt as he went, trying to avoid a swell of self-consciousness, "I decided that from now on when I have a hangover, I'm just going to get an I.V." he picked his phone up again, glancing at the screen: _#PrayersForTozier to hurry up and come back. Second time we've bought tickets._ He looked up as Bill offered out a coffee, his expression still concerned and they held each others' gaze for a moment as they mutually tried to work out what kind of conversation they were about to have.

Finally, Bill said:

"Eddie is okay."

There was a slant in his tone, the same tone that might be used if someone started a conversation with _so the good news is insurance is going to take care of it_ followed closely by _but the house burned down_.

"But?" Richie asked, trying not to make his prompting too aggressive but he shook his coffee hard enough to spill some, so Bill reached up and touched his chest.

"He had a seizure."

"That's not _okay_ , when did that become _okay_? You can't lead with 'he's okay' and then vault into 'after a seizure', who taught you how to break news? That's shitty delivery. You delivered shit." Richie said, managing to keep his tone casual but the words were falling out of him more rapidly than he wanted and he could feel Bill's warm hand through his shirt and knew that he could feel how fast his heart was.

"He's stable." Bill said.

"I think that's probably the first time anyone has ever said that about Eddie." Richie replied and he immediately regretted the joke, but Denbrough cracked the slightest smile and that was _something_ wasn't it? Because Bill's smile had always held a kind of promise, the reassurance that eventually things would be okay - a Lexapro kind of smile, a straight shot of serotonin, "Can I -"

"Not for a fuh-few more hours." Bill said, letting his hands slide tenderly down Richie's chest before he moved them away and he tried to recall the last time anyone had touched him so casually but couldn't summon a memory, "But they're monitoring him, they're gonna take care of him, but it means they c-can-can't transfer him to New York for a while still." They both knew what it meant for all of them: there was no chance any of them were going to leave until they knew Eddie could leave too. 

"So how about you let me take you out somewhere?" Bill asked, "Maybe not Chinese food."

"That's funny." Richie said.

"I should be the comedian if writing doesn't work out." Bill agreed, unconsciously taking the lead down the hall.

"Yeah, but you'd still have to end the set without killing someone, so same problem." Richie said and Bill looked over his shoulder at him, giving him a once-over that stated _how about I kill you?_ and it was adorable because Bill would have to hop to get at him.

"But that means you've read my books." Bill pointed out.

"I get them in airports." Richie said and Bill was left puzzling over whether or not that had been an insult. 

"You're funny when you write your own material." 

Richie's mouth opened and stayed that way. 

When Bill finally looked over at him, their faces cracked at the same time, spreading into wide grins before they laughed their way down the hospital hallway like a couple of kids, temporarily oblivious to the fact they should be moderating themselves. When a serious-looking nurse shot them both a chastising glance just before the doors, they began to bat at each other as though fighting for who would get out first, both of them ultimately squeezing through at the same time, playfully shoving each other at the landing before making their way down the stairs, filled with energy that belonged to the people they had been twenty-seven years ago.

The night air felt good on Richie's skin and suddenly it seemed as though he hadn't been outside in forever and as he stood outside of Bill's car, he looked out at Derry and his eyes fell on the distant lights of the fair and then he looked down at his hands, suddenly remembering them being bathed in violet, and then the night came back to him in flashes before he remembered the bridge.

_"I need to say something out loud and I need you to never repeat it."_

Fear spasmed over Richie's face before he could tamp down on it, his eyes flicking up to Bill, who had his phone lifted to his face, listening to it ring.

"I'll ask Ben wh-where he is, maybe he'll join us," Bill said, bobbing on the balls of his feet with his car keys in one hand, fingers slowly toying with the edges of them and then Bill's face lit up when the line picked up and he said, "Hey good-looking -"

And then he almost dropped the phone because on the other end all he could hear was Ben screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore


	7. Attic Storage

"So," Dr. Anders said, looking down at the clipboard he was holding, taking his time writing to give the man in front of him the illusion of privacy, "This is the part where you tell me what happened to you."

Mike kept his head tilted down but his eyes drifted up while he stroked his thumb over his palm again and again in what Anders recognized as a self-soothing ritual, one of several that Hanlon had displayed during their brief interactions. 

"Fell down." Mike said.

"Onto - an edged weapon?" Anders asked slowly and Mike said nothing, so the doctor's eyes dropped to his hands again and he said, "That's quite the scar."

Mike closed his fingers unconsciously over the old mark, protective of it.

"You fall down getting that one, too?" he asked and again Mike said nothing, so Anders took a chair and pulled it up and it was only then that Hanlon sat as well because in spite of his deep reluctance to be there, he hated to tower over someone - it made him feel like a threat, or like others would think he was a threat, he couldn't tell anymore. They watched each other for a few seconds before Anders nodded to his freshly-bandaged arm, "That looks like a defensive wound - a very, very infected one by the way, a little longer and we'd have been looking at sepsis."

Mike clutched at his elbows and he said nothing while his arm and head throbbed at the same time; he wasn't sure if it was the hangover or being carved that hurt worse right then, but without the others around to distract him, he couldn't avoid thinking about the pain. He suddenly wanted to sleep for a week, but he knew he wasn't going to be able to close his eyes in the hospital - besides underground, it was the last place in the world he wanted to be.

"I understand why you don't want to be here." Anders said, "Your medical record wasn't a long read but the last time you were here -"

"Please, I don't wanna talk about that." Mike pleaded, his voice suddenly desperate, "I don't wanna talk about that, alright? Please."

Anders let out a slow breath, then pressed his lips together and nodded before gesturing both hands passively, aware he'd hit upon a point of trauma and knowing when to back down.

"Things are a little different now, but I can understand why you might be reluctant to report it if someone was hurting you -"

"I don't know if you've seen the news lately, but things are exactly the same as they've always been." Mike was so quiet that Anders had to focus hard to hear him properly, "No one is hurting me - I fell." he looked down at his hands again and Anders knew the conversation was over, so he changed gears.

"You were switched to Seroquel a couple of years back, have you been reassessed since then?"

"I just do what the doctor tells me." Mike said. It explained why he was also listed as being on medications that had the potential to interact with each other - there had been no follow-up after his initial evaluation almost fifteen years prior, which was likely a combination of Hanlon being mistreated by the medical system and avoiding it, with one following the other. 

"And how are your symptoms?" 

Mike thought about the ceiling full of balloons and he thought about the last twenty-seven years, he thought about the fact that sometimes he scared himself and the way that he'd woken up standing at the very top of the library clock tower twice in the last year and then he said:

"Trouble sleeping sometimes." 

There was a beat of silence and then Anders said:

"Have you considered therapy, Mr. Hanlon?"

It was like a dam broke because Mike's expression shifted from careful detachment to something cautiously warm and then he began to laugh while the doctor stood looking at him, warily amused.

"Sorry, you just said that so bluntly," Mike said, looking away and smiling, "Just 'get your crazy ass to therapy'."

"I don't think you're crazy, Mr. Hanlon." 

"No? I'm not so sure. But I appreciate the sentiment."

"I can get you a referral if -"

"Thanks, but I'm not staying long." Mike interrupted as kindly as he could manage, "As soon as Eddie's out, I'm out." 

"Well, good for you." Anders said, "Where are you going?"

Mike paused over his knee-jerk answer 'Florida' then said:

"Disney World."

They both smiled just a little, then Anders said:

"Good - but how about I get you a referral anyways."

* * *

Bill Denbrough drove a clunky silver hatchback that was in the middle of a Toto song when he turned the engine over but Richie didn't have the opportunity to make a joke out of any of it because he barely made it into the vehicle before Bill was putting the gas to the floor. The passenger side door ended up slamming shut by virtue of speed and Richie grabbed at the handle above him when Bill took a sharp left. It wasn't a long drive from the hospital to the library but it was long enough that they could feasibly die getting from point A to point B, particularly given that Denbrough had decided to overlook every road law that existed for those few blocks.

"Put your seat b-b-b-" Bill said and Richie almost laughed because of course he was trying to tell him to be safe while driving like he had dreams of the Indie 500. Still, Denbrough kept trying to get the word out, another four repetitions of a single consonant while white-knuckling the wheel before he stopped trying to say it at all and Richie felt a little like he had been denied a climax and was tempted to finish it off himself, but then Bill slammed his palm on the wheel and said, " _Fuck_ Maine!"

"I can definitely get behind this energy, but Maine is gonna fuck us in another three feet because that is a _lamp post_ Bill, and _you cannot drive up lamp posts_." Richie said quickly and Bill veered, climbed the curb just beyond the post, then burst out of the car so explosively that he briefly had to catch his hands on the road to stop himself from face-planting; he used the leverage and friction of the asphalt to propel himself forward like a drunken track star. For three seconds Richie stayed where he was with his heart pounding, watching Bill Denbrough's solid little frame sprint across the damp grass in front of the library and then he stumbled out as well, yelling, "Bill, wait!" He caught his enormous foot on the seat belt he didn't put on before he could get any forward motion, talking to himself as he went, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, why is everyone else in fucking shape? Comedians don't run, didn't Marc Maron almost die going for a jog? Fuck Chris Pratt, traitor. Christ, how does he go so fast on those little legs? _Bill!_ "

Inside, Bill skidded through the foyer and yelled for Ben, stopping short with his arms outstretched and fingers spread, listening intently and Richie came in after him, skidding to a stop. Richie put his hands on his hips and said:

"Oh thank god you stopped moving, look, I think we should probably stick together because -"

And then Bill was taking off again and Richie took a swipe at him as though hoping he might be able to catch him and either control his energy or harness it and ride him like a miniature pony through the library but he was long gone, taking his momentum with him. Richie went after him but only made it another ten feet before he came to a stand still, staring at a dark spot on the floorboards, the entire world suddenly reduced to that square of space.

Oh.

 _Right_.

It wasn't that he had forgotten because it was hard to forget about the time he had murdered a human being with an axe but with all the - _everything_ \- he hadn't precisely stopped to really think about it, so being suddenly confronted with the actual crime scene -

"Hey, why didn't cops come to the hospital?" Richie asked no one while staring at the dried blood. One of them had clearly been a responsible adult because he was staring at floorboards instead of a body but something wasn't adding up and he was only just realizing it because he had spent the last several days concussed, drunk, hungover, or a combination of the three. He might have ended up standing there forever if it weren't for the sound of yelling and then Richie was scrambling down the stretch of hallway and up the steps. 

As he got closer he recognized it was Ben's voice but he couldn't make out any actual words, it was just the sound of _fear_ and of all the things Richie was mentally prepared for - an evil clown, an evil clown-spider, a homophobic evil clown-spider, some kind of evil child-grizzly bear hybrid - he somehow wasn't ready at all for what he actually saw.

Ben was on the ground, curled up in a ball, rocking gently back and forth with his face in his palms; Bill was on his knees beside him with his hands hovering nearby, trying to decide if touching him was something he should do. The inside of Mike's place looked as though it had been hit by a tornado, the table was overturned and the books and papers were everywhere; it looked a lot more bleak while sober, which was saying something.

"I can't get out, I can't get out." Ben said and he was just saying it over and over, "I can't get out, I can't get out."

Richie felt like an idiot just standing there while his friend had a mental breakdown but his usual contribution of a dick joke somehow felt wrong so he did the rational thing and looked to Bill for help, but he looked just as lost. Tozier searched himself for anything that could be useful and then he went to the sink - there was broken glass in it - and he opened the cupboard to get a cup, discovering that there was only one inside. He went to run the tap but nothing came out, so he opened the fridge and poured a glass from a pitcher, easing into a crouch in front of Ben.

"Hey there big guy," Richie said, attempting to make his voice soothing but instead he sounded more like he was trying to lure Hanscom into his van, "How about you -"

"No!" Bill yelled, suddenly lunging forward and slapping the glass so hard that it hit the wall and shattered; Ben was jolted from his near-catatonia by the noise and let out a yell of fear, throwing his arms over his head and tucking in on himself like a sexy armadillo having a panic attack. He tilted onto his side on the floor and stayed there.

"What the fuck!" Richie yelled, gesturing at the glass, then at Ben, "Now he's fetal, that's worse!"

"You got that from the fuh-fridge!" Bill yelled back, gesturing at Ben, then at the glass.

"Yeah! Things are in fridges, Bill!" Richie continued yelling because it was just a thing they were doing now.

"It's drugged!" Bill yelled.

"What?" Richie asked at a normal volume.

"It's drugs." Bill amended.

" _What_?" Richie repeated.

"It made me see sp-space." Bill said unhelpfully and Richie was so lost and Ben was crying on the floor so he just sat down and stared at them both for a few seconds before everything clicked into place.

"He's tripping." Richie said finally, then pointed towards the sink and Bill followed his finger, then looked back to Ben, "There was a broken glass in the sink," Richie put his hands on the ground and leaned in slightly and said, "Ben, it's okay, you're just on drugs."

"No." Ben moaned sadly from between his arms.

"Wait, so you took this shit?" Richie asked Bill, distracted by the details.

"Not on purpose."

"You took this shit by accident?"

"Not exactly."

"To reiterate, you didn't take it by accident or on purpose." Richie said.

"Yes." said Bill.

"What the fuck is in it?"

"Roots."

"That's suspiciously broad. Ginger is a root."

"I know ginger is a roo-roo-root, what does th-that have to do with - _does this look like the result of ginger root to you?_ " Bill gestured.

"So Mike just keeps a pitcher of psychedelics in his fridge? Fuck, here I thought Bev would be the party friend." Richie said, "I want some."

"You don't want some, don't drink it, stop putting things in your mouth." Bill said, "Help me sit him up." 

Together they managed to lever Ben into a sitting position and he sank limply against a post, looking unspeakably miserable with his face and collarbone covered in a sheen of sweat. 

"You look like garbage, but like - hot garbage." Richie said, then instantly regretted it because Ben turned his glassy, mournful eyes towards him, "Oh god, his eyebrows are being sad at me." 

"You're going to be okay." Bill said, gently grasping Ben's upper arm while Richie moved around to the other side of him, then leaned forward slightly to look at the way they were all in a row before he gestured at them.

"Loser sandwich." Richie pointed out and he watched Bill's mouth struggle not to drift upwards, so Richie pointed specifically at Ben and added, "Salami." And Bill didn't understand what was funny about any of it - really, nothing was funny about it at all - but he still had to choke back a whimper.

"Don't." Bill said softly, pleading for Richie to behave, too aware of how easily Tozier set him off and he didn't want to laugh while Ben was in the middle of an existential crisis, particularly given he'd been in the same place a few days ago.

"Okay." Richie drawled as though he was indulging him, privately pleased with the impact he still had on Denbrough, even now; he turned his eyes to Ben, examining his profile from up close and he searched for something he could say, "Is there, uh, is there anything that could be like, helpful right now, Ben?"

Ben was silent for a worryingly long time, his expression distant and pained and when he finally spoke his voice was so small and quiet that Richie and Bill had to lean in to hear him and he said:

"Nachos."

* * *

There were only a handful of restaurants in Derry so Richie finally got waffles but he had trouble focusing on them because 1) he was thinking about the crime he had committed and 2) Ben was still off his fucking face on DMT. Richie tried not to stare but Bill was beside Ben and had to keep propping him up and he suddenly remembered the limp-legged stuffed frog from the fair and then he was thinking about 3) the fact that he might have told Mike something extremely private.

"I don't feel great." Ben said, his voice quavering.

"There's nuh-nachos." Bill replied, even picking one up and trying to motheringly feed it to Hanscom, who sank further in the booth like he was melting into a puddle beneath it, but he still took the chip between his teeth on his way down and Bill watched him for a while before he softly said, "Ben, chew." 

Ben bit down and the nacho broke in half and fell on his lap.

"Solid effort." Richie said.

"Am I alive?" Ben asked.

"You're alive." Richie confirmed.

"Am I in Derry?" Ben asked.

"You're in Derry." Bill confirmed.

"No." Ben wailed softly, in protest rather than disagreement, his eyebrows doing a lot of heavy lifting, "Is anyone laughing at me?"

"A little." Richie said and Bill looked at him like he was going to beat him to death with a plate full of waffles so he said, "No one is laughing at you."

"Where's Bev?" 

"She went out."

"I didn't leave Bev in the crypt?" Ben asked.

"You didn't leave Bev in -" Richie began, then interrupted himself, "What crypt?"

"I got shut in a crypt." Ben said.

"And you couldn't get out." Bill concluded, watching Ben miserably nod, then finally reach for his glass of water, missing it the first two times before he painstakingly dragged it towards himself, drinking slowly and still spilling onto his chest. Bill helped him sit up again and this time he managed to stay propped up against the side of the booth, his neat little beard dripping and Richie's heart grew three sizes as he watched Denbrough very carefully mop his face up with a napkin.

"Was-was-was there anything in the crypt?" Bill asked, reaching for Richie's waffles, so Tozier met him halfway by pushing the plate in his direction while both of them watched Ben, who nodded into his glass.

"A mummy."

"What, like full-on - bandages, Lon Chaney, Wrestling Women versus Aztec Mummy, kinda mummy?" Richie asked, pushing the syrup Bill's way and Denbrough took his time pouring it into each individual square while Hanscom thought about it.

"No." he said finally, looking blearily around himself, the edges of sobriety beginning to register in his face as he slowly began to move back towards reality, "More like -" he hesitated over it, "- just like, a dead person."

Bill dropped the waffle and then Ben looked down and said:

"Oh, nachos."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Toto song was Georgy Porgy.
> 
> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore


	8. Child Locks

The first time Beverly Marsh drank, she had been fourteen years old. 

She remembered that detail as she brought the whiskey to her lips and took another acrid mouthful, the last eighth of the bottle she had stolen from Richie. She had needed a hard drink since she had gotten the call from Mike but now that she was having it, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted it after all. 

The first time she drank, she had been fourteen and living in Portland; her cousin had stolen gin from the cabinet and they had sat on the back porch passing the bottle between them, taking progressively more daring drinks from it and pretending they were grown. She remembered that she had burnt through half a pack of cigarettes and they had started laughing at some point and couldn't stop. She remembered that she had started crying not long after that and hadn't known why, and then she had felt like she was going crazy, and then she had spent most of the night with her head in the toilet bowl. She remembered the look that her cousin had given her the next day - as though she had been shaken to her very core - but neither of them spoke about it ever again and she never knew exactly what she had told her.

The second time Bev drank, it had been her twenty-first birthday and she had been crammed into a booth with six other people - she had thought that the number felt right, somehow. She recalled the clear shots of tequila that were lined up in front of her and everyone thumping the table with their fists until she picked up the first drink to shouts of encouragement while liquor spilled over her fingers and she remembered thinking: _I can't drink this, or he'll smell it on me_ , but she didn't know why.

Bev took another drink mostly out of spite. She put the bottle down. She picked it up again and started to peel the label, pausing to look at a tag hanging from the neck of it: _Happy 30th_ and then she put it down again, setting it far away. She drew her knees to herself and put her arms around her legs and stared out at the Barrens, watching the water move. 

With the beginning of a buzz, she thought about Ben. She thought about his eyes, she thought about his neck. She thought about the scar on his abdomen and the striations on his lower back and upper arms and along his thighs, softly textured when she ran her fingers along them and he had been embarrassed until she did it again and again, until his shame turned to comfort and then they were just forty-somethings bonding over their stretch marks as she climbed on him and guided his hands to the ones on her hips.

She thought about Bill and the kiss at the bottom of the stairs and the recognition that they had both been looking for something and had not found it in each other. She thought about the way he had held her hand in the hospital doorway and the earnest warmth of him and then she thought: _Big Bill_ , because they had something in each other already. 

The bottle was in her hands again and Bev thought about Mike and felt her eyes go hot when she considered everything he had given up. She told herself that when she next had a chance, she was going to wrap her arms around him and not let go until someone made her, like she might be able to make up for the twenty-seven years he had gone without arms around him.

She thought about Richie with his hands gripping Eddie's arms so hard on the way out of Neibolt that there were still fading finger-shaped bruises on him. She thought about the way he had just said _please_ again and again and it had been the first time Bev had thought that maybe she hadn't been in love with Tom at all.

She thought about Eddie, wide-eyed and terrified while holding a broken piece of iron gate. She thought about him pale in a hospital bed.

Bev thought about the nightmares she had been having and suddenly thought: _I shouldn't have come out here alone_ and she reached up to fix her hair and the fabric of her cheap floral dress, trying to cover the back of her neck. She looked down at her hands because she didn't want to look up, but she told herself they had just been dreams, that when she lifted her head it would just be the water and the rocks and the trees.

Then she looked up and ten feet away from her a man stood on the shoreline, his face a blank gray canvas and his eyes gaping hollows filled with tangles of twigs, so Bev clawed at the roots beside herself for traction to get to her feet and she made it halfway up the hillside before she heard the sound of crashing up ahead and she barely managed to get out of the way before something enormous and heavy landed in the spot she'd been standing in. With her back to a tree and her heart pounding in her chest, she looked down and had to clap both of her hands over her mouth to hold in a scream.

* * *

Ben Hanscom was enjoying his nachos. 

Drooping in the diner booth, he had missed his mouth repeatedly but was still managing to gradually demolish the all-dressed plate, somehow feeling simultaneously blissful and hungover. The day had been awful - the week had been awful - but for now there were corn chips and cheese and it was enough to occupy his brain and keep him from having to process the fact that he'd spent the last hour having a panic attack, or the childhood he had only recently remembered, or the whole thing with the toddler-eating clown-alien. In fact, he was so absorbed in his meal that he hadn't noticed that Bill and Richie had left the table and were standing on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant having an animated conversation.

"No, I am drawing a line. This is the line." Richie said, raking a finger through the air between them: the line. Bill's big blue eyes monitored the gesture and then he waved his hands between them as though removing the enforced boundary. 

"But what if -" Bill began, gesturing down the road.

"Nope." Richie stuck his fingers in his ears because he'd heard the same thing as Bill and he knew they'd had the exact same thought as they sat frozen and staring at each other while Ben crunched his way through what were probably the first carbs he had eaten since the early 2000s. Richie had decided that if he didn't hear Bill say the actual words then he could deny the problem existed at all, so he stood with his ears blocked and loudly said, "I can't hear you, 'cause I don't wanna."

Bill Denbrough, accomplished author, gave a single hop of fury. 

Then he walked away. He didn't go back to the restaurant, but instead he stamped across the parking lot towards the car and Richie knew what the answer was going to be and he knew better than to ask and he knew he should keep his mouth shut and he knew he didn't want to be involved with this, _with any of this_ , but then _none of them did_ and that was _Bill_ and -

"Where are you going?" Richie yelled, his voice pleading, "Bill! We've got a blitzed, giant toddler to wrangle, man! We can't leave him, _he might choke on a ja-la-peño_!"

Denbrough was getting in the car, so Richie loped across the parking lot and managed to jam himself in the way of the door before it could close and he leaned in to try and snag the keys from Bill, who fought him furiously.

"This is a bad decision!" Richie said, half on Bill and half out of the car, Bill's elbow jamming into the ditch of his collarbone, his knee in Bill's hip, Bill's arm stretched as far back as it could go to keep the keys away from him, "Why the _fuck_ are you so strong?"

"Get off!" Bill yelled, squirming like an eel.

"Not until you promise you're not going to be stupid!" 

"Someone has to do something!"

" _Why does it have to be us_?" Richie asked through clenched teeth and Bill must have hit the seat latch because the chair suddenly shot backwards and then Denbrough was horizontal in the car with Tozier sprawled across his lap. There was a stretch of silence before Richie said: "Is that your wallet or -"

"Because if it's not us, it'll be muh-Mike." Bill interrupted, finally holding still, staring at the roof of the hatchback and after a few more seconds, Richie shifted so he could see Denbrough's face, his hands planted on the seat on either side of Bill's hips.

"I don't want to be that guy, but I'm gonna be that guy - why don't we just call the cops? Isn't that what they're good for?" Richie asked and Bill's eyes moved his way.

"It's been three days, Rich." Bill said slowly and Richie knew that was only the first of a possible dozen reasons, "We left the scene," his voice got very quiet as he added, "- and you killed him with an axe."

Richie slid out of the car and sat on the concrete. Behind him, Bill slowly levered his chair back up and awkwardly placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Is Ben still eating nachos?" Richie asked miserably and Bill looked towards the diner window.

"He's actually _asleep_ on his nachos." Bill said. In spite of his inner turmoil, Richie got to his feet because it was the sort of thing he had to see or he would never forgive himself.

"Look at that." Richie marveled, his voice awed and his face devastated.

"May-maybe," Bill said, his tone careful, "Maybe there was nothing there. Maybe it was just the drugs."

With his eyes still on the window, Richie said:

"Yeah. Maybe. Maybe it's nothing."

They looked at each other again, their expressions matching as they told comforting lies.

"It could be nothing."

* * *

"Oh, Mikey." Bill said softly, standing in the open doorway to the boiler room. Wrapped in black plastic tarp and carefully sealed with duct tape, Henry Bowers' body was propped in a sitting position against the water heater in Mike's home.

"Is it bad?" Richie asked, standing with his arms crossed tight against his chest and his back to the refrigerator.

"It's not good." Bill said and Richie's curiousity finally got the better of him; he tilted slowly into the doorway until he could just see sideways into the room and he was instantly hit by the smell of half a dozen floral air fresheners.

"This isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but somehow it's still worse." Richie said and the chemical smell was so strong that his eyes were watering. For reasons he couldn't articulate, he felt like he was going to start laughing and would never be able to stop so he said, "Hey, you know how during Christmas people wrap up their trees before tying them to the roof of their car?"

Bill turned and looked at Richie, his hands out and palms facing upwards: seriously, man?

"Bad time, okay, yeah." Richie said, staring at the floor and then he remembered Mike insisting that they go back to the Derry Town House, _trust me, you don't want to sleep it off in my place_ and he realized that Bowers' body had already been there but he had been too drunk to think about any of it at the time.

"He shut off the water." Bill said, recalling how the faucet hadn't worked earlier, the very reason Ben had taken a drink from the refrigerator, "To bring down the temperature in here."

They both went to the table and sat down. Bill put his head in his hands and Richie picked up a roll of duct tape, realized what he was holding, then dropped it. He imagined Mike shopping for the things he needed to wrap up a body, he imagined him gathering an armful of air fresheners from a store shelf, then he got up and opened the cabinets under the sink where Hanlon had pulled the bottle of whiskey from and found half a dozen more. When he stood up and turned around, he was holding a pack of rubber gloves and protective face masks and both of them were at a loss for words as he dropped those things in front of Denbrough. Bill sank until his chin was on the table while Richie stared at nothing.

"Okay, but how did he move him?" Richie asked suddenly, stuck on the details, "Bowers is like - what, two hundred pounds?"

Bill thought about the steps outside of the hospital, he thought about his hand on Mike's. He thought about the way Mike couldn't look at him while he told him his plans for the future because he had been lying. 

He was suddenly certain that Mike had intended to take the fall for Henry Bowers' death.

With a lurch in his stomach, Bill pictured how Bowers' body had gotten there.

"Mike deadlifts." Bill said hollowly.

* * *

It was Bill's ingenuity that led to them creating impromptu handles out of duct tape and Richie might have complimented him on the creativity if it had happened for any other reason besides making it easier for them to carry a dead body. As they moved down the stairs, Richie told himself it was just a carpet, just a very heavy carpet that made slightly damp sounds when they jostled it too hard.

Just a dead, racist, heavy carpet.

"Why is it wet?" Richie asked and wished he hadn't, so he said, "Don't answer that."

"I wasn't gonna." said Bill, who had been about to. 

"This is a weird time for me to have deja vu, but I'm having deja vu." Richie added, his tone conversational as they moved down the hall towards the back exit, their steps awkward and shuffling.

"H-how-how many bodies have you carried?"

"Just my father's." Richie said so casually that Bill almost dropped his end and they had to pause to readjust, so Richie clarified, "I didn't kill him, I was a pallbearer."

"I didn't know he -"

"Four years ago." Richie said, wishing he hadn't brought it up, so he added, "He _did_ like to prepare me for anything, so thanks dad, I guess."

They reached the door before Bill spoke again.

"I'm sorry. I wish I-I-I -"

"I'll invite you to the next one." Richie said quickly and they set the corpse down. Tozier opened the door and peered out into the sparse back lot; Bill's car had been backed up right to the ramp and he said, "The hatchback was a solid choice, Denbrough, we could fit like three dead guys in the back." He fell short of cavalier because of the way his voice was shaking, but Bill let him pretend anyways. He watched as Bill opened the trunk where another piece of tarp had been laid down and the urge to laugh crept up on him again, so he shook himself out of it while his ears rang.

Richie had thought that dead bodies were stiff, but it turned out they got bendy again at some point because they managed to fit it into the back of the hatchback with some careful positioning; Bill threw a blanket over it for good measure, but it just looked like a dead body under a blanket. 

Neither of them said a word during the drive and Ben didn't wake up the whole time.

* * *

It was the second time that Henry Bowers was soaring down the hillside into the barrens; he hit a jutting rock a quarter of the way down and launched from it into a mid-air flip that impressed both Bill and Richie and they stood at the top with torn duct tape handles still hanging from their hands, their mouths open as the body picked up speed. It crashed through brush and Denbrough was the first to get his senses back, skidding down the bluff after it while Richie stood with his head hanging. He took a breath and found it in himself to pursue at the pace expected of a man in his mid-forties, his lower back aching all the way down, promising himself that he was going to take up yoga if he made it back to Chicago alive.

Halfway down, the area had become so dark that Bill had to turn on his phone flashlight and as he guided himself in the direction of the noise, he thought to himself: _I shouldn't leave Richie alone_ and then Beverly Marsh punched him in the face so hard that he lost his footing, tripped over the mass of Bowers' body and slid the rest of the way down into the barrens.

"Oh my god." Bev said.

"What -" said Richie from behind her and then she punched him in the face as well, knocking his glasses clean off and sending him into a tree.

"Oh my god!" Bev repeated, clutching her throbbing hand.

"Fuck!" Richie yelled.

"Fuck!" Bev shouted, because Henry Bowers' dead face stared up at her through the torn tarp and she stumbled away from it and over to Richie, who was pawing around in the dark for his glasses and she as she handed them to him she asked, "What the fuck?"

"Please stop hitting me, I'm blind." Richie said from the dirt.

"Bill?" Bev asked weakly, turning towards the water.

"Yes Beverly." Bill said patiently as he dragged himself out of the stream and she grasped his arms to pull him upright, both of them shaking so hard that they had to use each other for support. Bev eventually picked up Bill's cell phone and used it to shine the light on Tozier, who was sitting at the base of a tree with a nosebleed and he raised a hand: _hi, Bev._ She turned the light to the body, then turned it directly onto Bill and he squinted into the interrogation glare, a leaf plastered to his eyebrow. She tried to wait them out but when neither of them spoke, she repeated herself.

"What the fuck?"

Finally, Bill said:

"Mike."

None of them said anything for several minutes, lingering in the woods and absorbing the reality of their situation, and then Bev stripped off her coat and said:

"Where are we putting him?"

* * *

When Ben Hanscom woke up, Beverly was doing up her seat belt, her face pasted with dirt and her dress damp and wrinkled and he groggily asked:

"What have you kids been up to?"

In the front of the car, Bill and Richie exchanged meaningful looks, both of them ghastly pale, but before either of them could say anything, Bev spoke.

"We built a dam." she said and put her arm around Ben and buried her face in his hair and Hanscom didn't question it, he just let her do it while Bill started the car. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had nachos today.
> 
> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore, sometimes I draw things for the story.


	9. Honey Smacks

**50 Hours Ago**

* * *

_"You have any more of those pills? Or something stronger?"_

* * *

"He's going through something." Richie said slowly and Mike sidled up beside him in the grocery aisle to look at the same box of cereal that he was staring at high on the shelf. Mike looked at the box, then he looked at Richie, then he looked at the box.

"The Honey Smacks frog is going through something?" 

"Look at him." Richie insisted, so Mike looked again, "When it was Sugar Smacks he wore his hat with the bill to the front, now it's Honey Smacks and he wears it sideways. Every time they redesign him, he's more manic - like, look at his face, he's losing his fucking mind, he's like 'this shit is the only good thing I've got left, I fucking love this puffed wheat bullshit, my wife tried to run me over with her dodge caravan and I get an erection when I cry'."

"The Xanax is kicking in, huh?" Mike asked.

"Oh, fuck yeah." Richie said, then looked down at the bags Hanlon was holding, "Did you already go through the checkout? How long have I been standing here?"

"Like twenty minutes."

"Shit."

"You just seemed really peaceful." Mike said and then Richie walked dick-first into a one-way gate and doubled over.

"One way." the cashier pointed out.

"Thanks, yeah." Richie said, crouching.

"You okay?" 

"Hurt my dick, give me a minute." he said, then duck-walked past the gap in the gate and hoarsely asked, "Do you think someone has drawn porn of the Honey Smacks frog? Someone has to have, right?"

Mike avoided the cashier's eyes as he went around and met Richie on the other side, helping him stand.

"Why do you need so much bleach?" Richie asked as they moved into the parking lot; he was still acutely aware of the way his entire body was hurting but it didn't seem to matter because he felt slow and warm and a little stupid, "Hey, that guy is selling hot dogs and I need at least three of those." 

They ate on a park bench and people stared as they walked past because Richie was still pasted in filth and covered in hot dogs.

"How bad do I smell?" he asked, he was on his second hot dog and half-melted into the spot, his long legs out in front of him, one hairy knee exposed through the fist-sized hole in his jeans.

"I'm not down wind and there are hot dogs, so I can't really tell." Mike pointed out, unenthusiastic about his own meal, partly because it was from a Derry street vendor but mostly because he'd been feeling queasy for the better part of a day, but the worst of it was the way his head was throbbing, like someone had tightened a clamp around his skull. 

"Bev would have told me I smell like the inside of a goat, you're always so fucking nice, Mike," Richie looked hazy, but thoughtful, "You were like that when we were kids, too," he said slowly, talking the memory out as it surfaced, struck suddenly by the image of Mike as a kid, lifting a miniscule Eddie Kaspbrak into the big wire basket of his bicycle, but he didn't want to think about it for very long, "Really serious - and quiet, you had that whole 'speak softly and carry a big stick' thing, but you were always out to protect us. You were a sweet kid."

Mike looked down at his hands, stroking his thumb over the scar on his palm.

"Would've hated hearing that back then." he admitted, "Sweet wasn't what I was going for, not at the time."

"You mind it now?"

"I don't mind it now." Mike said, smiling at his hands. In the moment, Richie thought about reaching for him but he didn't know what he would do when he got there and not knowing even theoretically caused a flash of panic, so he invested himself in his food while Hanlon threw pieces of his bun to the sparrows and finches hopping around on the sidewalk. He tore off a piece, throwing it intentionally to a particular bird and when it was scooped up, he moved on to the next, taking his time trying to feed each of them, absorbing himself in the mindlessness of a repeated motion, an active distraction from everything he knew was coming.

When he eventually looked Tozier's way again, he discovered him frozen on the spot with his food held around chest-height, his eyes distant and glassy, so Mike turned on the bench and carefully asked, "Rich?"

"Huh?" Richie asked, then looked over at Mike, his face gray as he said, "Yeah, no, I'm fine, it's just that I remembered I killed a guy, just now."

They sat with that information for a while; Mike hadn't realized it was the sort of thing anyone forgot about but when he put it up against everything else that had happened, he supposed even murder could be temporarily forgettable - that, and Richie had hit his head really hard. 

"So that's fucked." Richie concluded, then cringed a moment later, "I'm gonna have to stay in Derry for the investigation, shit."

"Don't think about that right now." Mike said.

"I didn't know I could do something like that." Richie continued, setting his food down and sitting forward on the bench, putting his elbows on his knees, so Mike did the same, tilting his head to watch his profile, his eyebrows in a worried formation.

"Yeah." Mike said, looking at his feet for a while, then he said, "It's gonna be fine, you know?"

Richie smiled wanly because there was no possible way Mike could know that, but he appreciated the sentiment behind it.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Mike insisted, then gently put his hand on Tozier's filthy back and said, "You saved my life, you know that, right?"

Richie said nothing, suddenly deeply embarrassed in a way he hadn't experienced before, tangled up with everything else that was going through his head. He had to hope that he was going to lose the train of thought again, get distracted - he promised himself that if he started thinking about it after the Xanax wore off, he was going to find a bottle of something alcoholic and make himself forget again. 

Mike's hand gently squeezed his shoulder and his voice was soft, but Richie was too in his head to hear the resolve in it:

"Everything's gonna be fine." Mike promised. 

* * *

Mike Hanlon swept up the glass, then he laid dock line on the floor, four evenly-spaced lengths of old white polypropylene rope he had separated with the utility knife he used to open the boxes when shipments of books came in. He laid a piece of plywood over top of the rope, left over from when the library had undergone repairs, a slat that was three feet wide and four feet long with eight holes drilled into it, ten minutes of work he had done in the hallway with the hole saw attachment on his power drill. He pulled the rope through the holes on one side and made knots that his grandfather had taught him how to do when he was thirteen and learning how to properly tie an anchor.

He took a hand truck from the back door where he left it by the ramp for deliveries and he put the brakes on the caster wheels. He was deliberate with everything he did and he told himself it was so he did it properly, but the truth was that he was just stalling the inevitable.

He made himself look and then he looked away again, standing with his hands bunched into fists at his sides, his jaw shaking and his eyes on the far wall while his shadow stretched over the prone body of Henry Bowers. He told himself all of the things he'd told himself as a kid, standing on the killing floor with a bolt gun in his hand but none of it was working, just the way it hadn't worked back then. 

This was a human being. 

A terrible one. 

One that none of them owed anything to. 

He reminded himself that Bowers had killed his own father, his own friends, that he would have killed every single one of them if he'd had the chance, even before he'd lost his goddamn mind. He reminded himself that Bowers had cut into Ben Hanscom and had taunted Bill for things he couldn't help, that he had harrassed Beverly again and again, that he'd beaten on Eddie when he'd been half his size, and the things he had said to Stan had been unforgivable. He reminded himself of all the times he had been chased down by Bowers, the things he'd called him, what he'd said about his family. 

He thought about the way that - even after death - Bowers was a danger to every person he loved. 

There would be no cops, there would be no court, they weren't going to have their lives destroyed because of Bowers, he wouldn't let him take what they had, he wouldn't let them be locked up, he wouldn't let them be called crazy. 

He wouldn't let anyone hurt them, not if he could help it.

And he _could_ help it.

Mike looked again and then he kept looking for several minutes, until he could stop shaking.

Then he put on gloves.

He laid tarp over the excess rope, then he put a bag over Bowers' head to keep anything left from coming out, securing it in place with tape, then taping Henry's hands together to keep them from falling away from his body and his ankles together to make him easier to move. It took significant effort, but he rolled the body onto the tarp and then he began the process of carefully wrapping it up, starting at the feet and duct taping each part to form a tidy seal. When he was done that, he grasped the four ropes beneath Henry's body, braced his feet against the plywood, and pulled to get him onto the board. 

He brought the hand truck around, locking it as close as he could get it and then he used the ropes to tilt the board until the body threatened to roll off, stopped by the hammock of dock line and knots on one side, leaning it onto the hand truck. 

He went around to the other side, he pulled, and the board slid neatly into place. He put the ropes through the remaining holes, he tied the body in place, and then he took the brakes off and he took it down the hall.

At the stairs, he used the railing to his advantage, another length of rope brought to the top, tied to the board, using it to slide it up the steps like a sled, letting the strength of the railing do half the work while he did the rest, his body screaming at him for the way he had treated it in the last week, for the lack of sleep, for his injured arm and the fact he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten and that he hadn't taken his medications.

He put the corpse in his boiler room where he had shut the tank off hours earlier to let it cool. He turned on the fans he had, then he put out as many air fresheners as he could stand.

He left Henry Bowers' body there, he closed the door. He went to the bathroom and he threw up.

Afterwards, Mike's legs gave out, so he sat on the floor of his apartment and cried until he had nothing left in him.

* * *

**PRESENT**

They took Ben back to the Derry Town House to sleep off the hangover and for the third time that day, Bill drove back to the library. The first thing he did was turn the water back on while Bev stood in the middle of the attic apartment and turned slowly on the spot, her face displaying what the others had been thinking. Behind her, Richie examined a radio receiver and for a long time none of them said anything at all. 

Bill filled a bucket with hot water and dish soap. Richie found the bleach. Bev got the gloves.

One swept the remaining fragments of glass in the library while another broke down the remnants of the destroyed display case and another scrubbed the stain on the floor and then bleached it for good measure. They cleaned the shelves, the hallway, and the staircase that led up to Mike's home. They righted the table, organized his papers, and scrubbed the boiler room. They tossed out the air fresheners and opened the window.

Afterwards, Bill very deliberately took the pitcher from the refrigerator and dumped the contents down the drain; Richie thought it was a waste, but in a rare moment of self-restraint, he didn't say so and Bill noticed. They washed up as much as they could at the sink and then went back to the Town House, each of them bringing their clothes to Bill when they were done, all of it going into a bag along with the tarp and duct tape they had taken the time to peel and cut off of Henry Bowers' body.

It was three in the morning when they got in the car and drove down to the Penobscot river and stationed themselves at a fire pit, waiting for it to build high before they threw in the evidence, piece by piece. They sat on the ground and stared into the fire as Bev's daisy dress burned and then Richie finally broke the silence when he said:

"We should have brought marshmallows."

* * *

At six in the morning, Bev stripped to her underwear, got into bed and pressed up against Ben's back; it took only seconds before he laced his hands with hers and pulled her even closer, so she rested her chin against his shoulder.

"Hi." Ben said.

"Hi." Bev said.

"Are you okay?" 

"I'm okay." she lied, "Why?"

"You don't feel okay."

"What does that feel like?"

"Like when you're tuning a guitar and you know you're close to snapping the string. You just know it's close."

"I didn't know you played guitar."

"Badly. I've snapped a lot of strings."

"That's cute." Bev said, "So I'm like a tight guitar string?"

"About to snap." Ben agreed.

"I'll try not to." she said, and pet his chest and rested her hands there to feel his breathing.

"Hey Bev?"

"Yeah?"

Ben was quiet for a few seconds, then he asked:

"Do you want to go out with me?"

She smiled against his shoulder.

"What?" she asked.

"When we leave. After Derry. I want to take you out. On a date. At a place with things to do, I don't know what that means right now but I knew yesterday, I wrote it all down. Do you want to go out with me?"

Bev shifted so she could see his nervous profile; they had spent half a day exploring each other and he was turning scarlet just asking her to go out with him. It was only then that she realized they hadn't actually discussed what they wanted from each other.

"Ben?" Bev said.

"Yeah?"

"You know this isn't temporary, right?" she asked and he peered slowly back over his shoulder at her and she realized he _didn't_ know, so she said, "I want to go out with you."

"Good." Ben said.

"You 'wrote it all down'?" Bev asked and she felt him break into a light sweat under her hands.

"I was considering a Powerpoint presentation." he said.

"I'm listening."

"I found an instrumental of 'Please Don't Go Girl' that I was going to play over it."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I was going to use the prestige transition for every slide, then end it with a fireworks sound effect."

"Now you might just have to do it." she said as they both settled comfortably back into their spots.

"I'm sweaty, sorry." Ben said, still groggy, "Hey, no reason, but do you know if there's a drug that has to be refrigerated?"

Bev didn't mean to, but she started laughing.

* * *

The first thing Mike saw when he woke up was the word _exit_ , so he backed away from the gray metal door and sat down in the hospital stairwell and put his face in his hands as he tried to navigate the tangle of fear and nausea that always came afterwards. A voice came from a few feet away and it said:

"That was pretty close." 

Mike kept his face in his hands because he didn't want to look up. 

"You're lucky you kept your shorts on when you went to sleep."

"You learn to stop going commando after the first time you sleepwalk." Mike replied.

"You're talking to me now? You've really lost it."

Mike slid his hands slowly from his face and kept his eyes on his bare feet.

"Ignoring you isn't working." he said.

"Think you'll look at me?"

"Depends, you have a face this time?"

"I'm talking, aren't I?"

"Is your face in the right spot this time?"

"I'd hate to ruin the surprise."

"I bet, yeah." Mike said, keeping his eyes pointed away as he took hold of the railing to steady himself and got to his feet and started walking his shaking legs down the steps and as he got past the landing he turned his head just a little more so he wouldn't look in the corner. He started down the next flight of stairs and halfway down, he heard the slow footsteps behind him and he told himself he wouldn't look back, not even when the cold feeling passed over his back. He brushed his fingers over the nape of his neck, squaring his shoulders as he walked.

"Something walk over your grave?"

"You're funny for being psychosis." Mike said, just trying to put one foot in front of the other, just trying to ignore the way his stomach felt leaden, just trying to ignore what was following him down the stairs, "Hey, any chance you can leave me alone?"

"I thought you'd be sick of being alone."

"You just gonna haze me all the way back to my bed?"

"Like a roast ghost."

If Mike hadn't been terrified, he might have laughed. He got to the next landing and he stopped and something brushed his back and the urge to scream was very nearly overwhelming. He put his hands on his face again, shaking his head.

"You gonna snap?"

"No." Mike said into his palms.

"No?"

Mike shook his head again.

"I don't know, Mikey, your track record says otherwise."

It was like something in him had overflowed, so Mike ran, he took the steps two at a time and he ran, skidding on every landing he hit and trying each door only to find it was locked and when he looked through the window of one, all he saw was fire, so he backpedaled from it with his arm searing with pain and he kept running and he heard:

_"Mike!"_

And he stopped, wild-eyed.

"Bill?" he asked, turning on the spot, and then there it was, faceless and staring at him with its chest cracked wide open and ribs spread like wings and in the space where lungs should have been, balloons filled the gap and they inflated with every breath and in the red membrane of them he could see hands pressing, trying to get out, so he fell away from it and 

"Mike!"

Bill Denbrough was on top of him and battling his hands, the sun was just coming up and Mike was breathing raggedly when he finally stopped fighting. He let his hands drop to the ground and he looked at Denbrough and his sweating face and his terrified expression and he said:

"Bill, you got a black eye."

Then he realized two things.

The first was that he was covered in blood.

The second was that they were on the roof of the Derry hospital, three feet from the edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on Twitter @BoWritesMore


	10. A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Hospital

"Rich, you c-coming?"

Bill's voice was very soft and so quiet that it was almost inaudible, coming from the open doorway behind Richie as he stood in his room in the Derry Town House, staring at Eddie's luggage because the duffle bag had looked like a body. When he blinked it was just a bag, he knew it was just a bag, but he could swear the air smelled chemically floral and he had the urge to get back in the shower and scrub himself until his skin was peeling.

A framed picture fell off the wall and crashed behind the end table and Richie was jolted out of his thoughts, inhaling sharply.

"What?" he asked finally, still staring at the floor, then he processed what he had heard and said, "Oh, yeah." he turned to look at Bill and he wasn't there, so he said, "Bill?" Then he reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck to soothe away a chill that had gone up it; he moved to the side table to pick up his phone, thought about it for a few seconds, then put it back down, deciding he didn't want to look after all.

"Rich, you c-coming?"

Richie turned and Bill was in the doorway, looking serious and exhausted.

"You already asked me that." Richie said.

"What?" Bill said, "I just got up here."

"No, when you -" Richie began, pointing behind himself, but after a second to reconsider it, he said, "Yeah, no, sorry. I was -" A framed picture fell off the wall and crashed behind the end table and both of them looked towards it before Richie abruptly stated: "I have to piss." 

He shut himself in the bathroom and leaned over the sink with his head in his hands.

"Okay, Tozier." he said, giving himself his backstage pep-talk, "Get your shit together, you useless asshole." He had the thought that it would be easier to get his shit together if he was high and then he considered the entire pharmacy in Eddie's suitcase, then shook his head and repeated himself, "Get your shit together, man." When he looked up, Stanley Uris' gray, staring face looked back at him in the mirror, so he yelled, "Fuck!" And back-pedalled just in time to walk into Bill, his arms shooting up and flapping between them while he shouted, " _Fuck_!" 

"Rich?" Bill asked, alarmed, and Richie scrambled past him and out of the bathroom and out of the hotel room, jogging down the stairs.

"Let's go, man, let's get moving _, vamonos_." Richie said, clapping his hands like a soccer coach, jerking his pointing index fingers at the door, his voice shaking as he pitched it up in false enthusiasm while Bill stared at him from a floor above.

In the car, Bill asked:

"Do you want to t-talk about -"

"Nope." Richie said, elongating the vowel, drumming his hands on the steering wheel; he turned on the radio and it was in the middle of a Toto song so he turned it off again and refused to look in the rear view mirror for the entire drive.

Halfway across the parking lot, Bill grasped Richie's forearm.

"I don't want to talk." Richie repeated more sharply than he meant to, turning to look at Bill, who looked up at him with his eyebrows knitted together; in the morning light, the black eye looked especially bad so he said, "Bev's got a mean swing."

"I love you." Bill blurted out.

"What." Richie said, his face blooming with heat, sweat surfacing suddenly on his palms; he couldn't think of anything to say, nothing at all, all he could do was stare.

"I love you, Ri-Rich-Richie, and I just need you to know that." Bill repeated, grasping the front of his shirt hard enough to shift him a little.

"Okay." Richie said, feeling a little frantic in the face of Denbrough's earnesty, "Okay, that's rad, great -"

"Please don't hurt yourself." Bill said.

"Did Mike say something?" Richie sputtered and Bill shook his head; of course Mike didn't say something, "Why would I hurt myself? I spent the last week trying not to get hurt."

Bill's fingers loosened and tightened on his shirt and then Richie thought about all of the times Bill Denbrough had taken charge, the way he'd been determined to go into Neibolt as a kid and then again as an adult, the fact that he would have done it alone if he'd had to. He thought about when they were outside the diner and Bill said _someone has to do something_ and he thought about Georgie and he realized Bill was scared, he was _terrified_ and he needed something from him, but Richie didn't know what he could give him.

"Okay. It's, yeah, it's mutual, fine." Richie said, forcing it out, "The thing you said, it's a thing for me too, okay? We both feel that thing. That's a thing I feel. For you." Bill was still staring at him, so he added, "I'm not going to hurt myself, Bill."

Bill's shoulders dropped down several inches and he nodded.

"Okay?" Richie asked.

"Okay." Bill said.

"Can we go inside now?" 

They stopped at the small kiosk inside for cheap coffee, both of them drinking it while it was still too hot because it tasted even worse once it began to cool; Richie got himself a second one afterwards and picked up another for Mike before they went to his room. 

It was empty.

Richie's heart began to race.

"He muh-must be with Eddie." Bill said.

"Right, yeah." 

In the hallway, there was a streak of blood across the wall and both of them stared at it for a few seconds before wordlessly picking up the pace.

"Uh, holy shit, that's not good." Richie said quickly, because Eddie was where they had left him, looking uncharacteristically peaceful in his hospital bed, except his face had been turned into a wet red mask and in the centre of his chest, stamped onto his hospital gown, there was a bloody hand print. The sight made Richie's entire body go numb and cold - like he had been anesthetized - as a low whine began in his hearing, growing in volume until he was pressing his ears like he could collapse the noise between them. His vision flashed with neon faces and then his hands fell to his sides and his head dropped until his ear was touching his shoulder and in a voice that wasn't his, he said: "Mike is on the roof now." 

"What?" Bill asked, pulling his eyes away from Eddie, then grabbing Richie's shoulders, "Richie, what?" he repeated, but Richie's eyes had rolled back in his head until just the whites were showing, so Bill made a choice and he ran for the stairs. He took them two at a time, using the railing to propel himself, passing streaks of blood on the walls until he got to the top and fought the rusty door open. Mike's back was to him and Denbrough sprinted, putting himself in the way and using as much force as he could muster to throw himself onto Hanlon, guarding the back of his friend's head as they hit the roof hard.

"Mike, Mike," Bill said, grabbing at Mike's face and his hospital gown while Mike fought beneath him, shoving at his chest and his hands, his forearm torn open again and bleeding profusely, "Muh-Mikey, please, please, Mike!" 

Then it stopped and they were both very still, Mike breathing raggedly beneath him, his face and hospital gown spattered with his blood.

"Bill," Mike said, his face soft with concern, "You got a black eye." he looked around himself then, understanding slowly dawning on him as he sat up, so Bill took hold of his face to keep him focused on anything except how close they were to the edge.

"It's okay." Bill said, his voice choked, "It's okay."

After a while, Mike closed his eyes and said:

"Please don't let them keep me here again."

* * *

They were both still shaking as Bill supported Mike on the stairs, letting the bigger man lean on him, taking their time on the way down to contend with their adrenaline.

When they hit the third floor they found Richie standing motionless in the middle of the stairwell with blank eyes and his face pointed at the ceiling.

"Oh, _shit_." Mike said, reeling back a little, catching his good arm around Bill to try and take him with him, but Bill ducked beneath it.

"Yeah, that's a thing that's happening." he said tightly, moving forward with his hands outstretched.

"You see him too?" Mike asked, not sure if he was relieved or not.

"Rich?" Bill asked, then Richie turned and walked into the wall so hard that his glasses fell off, so they both grabbed him at the same time, Denbrough moving in front and Mike moving behind, each of them holding an arm as they walked a mannequin-like Tozier towards the first floor. Between them, he tottered from side-to-side down the stairs, unsteady and completely absent and Bill said, "I fuh-fucking hate Maine."

"Buddy, I hear you." Mike said, trying to support Richie's head as it flopped like a newborn baby's and when they hit the ground floor and stepped out into the hallway, Dr. Anders stopped short in front of them, looked at each of them in turn - Mike covered in blood, Bill with his bruised left eye, Richie with his eyes rolled back - then lifted his hands in front of himself to grab at nothing, audibly choking on his words for several seconds before he asked:

"What the _fuck_ , guys?"

* * *

Richie kept getting out of the bed and walking into things like a wayward Roomba - at one point dragging Bill halfway down the hall before he could get him back to his room with the help of two nurses - so they strapped him to the bed, a decision that distressed Mike so thoroughly that he had to be given a Lorazepam to calm down before Anders could address his arm. The doctor looked beyond frazzled as he cleaned and packed the wound and the sight of the gore made Bill think of Henry Bowers' head and the way it had been split like a boiled egg, so he looked anywhere else and he felt Mike's eyes on him the whole time.

"It could be a seizure." Anders reasoned, but Denbrough couldn't help thinking he sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

"Suh-seizures go on that long?" Bill asked.

"No." Anders said miserably; he had worked in Derry for several years after transferring out from a medical centre in New York with the desire to get away from the chaos of the city, but he had found that the little town of Derry had a disproporationate number of injuries, a problem that had become even more pronounced in the last several weeks. He wasn't a superstitious man, but he'd had the thought that there was something in the air lately, the feeling of something weighing down like an oppressively humid day.

"He could be possessed." Mike suggested drowsily; behind Anders, Denbrough waved his arms erratically: Mike, no.

"I'll just get the old priest and young priest we have on standby, then." Anders replied.

"You like Wi-William Peter Blatty?" Bill asked, trying to get in the way of any further suggestions from Hanlon while he was melting from benzodiazepines.

"Who?" Anders asked, understandably distracted.

"He wrote _the Exorcist_." 

"Oh, I don't read supernatural fiction, I just think it's all kind of ridiculous."

"Ha." said Bill.

"Bill writes supernatural fiction." Mike pointed out helpfully and both of them watched the doctor freeze, his face going red.

"It's fine." Bill said before Anders could apologize, "You can't ruh-roast me any harder than the reviews on my last book did."

When Dr. Anders was done with Mike's arm, he asked:

"Is there any chance I'm going to get a straight answer from one of you about what happened last week?"

"Sinkhole opened up on Neibolt." Bill answered automatically.

"All barely made it out alive." Mike added dutifully.

"Shouldn't have been trespassing, but we g-got sentimental." Bill said.

"Whole house disappeared." Mike said, slouching back against the wall with his eyes shut and his head tilted back, chemically relaxed.

"Wrong place, wrong time." Bill finished.

"Right." Anders nodded, his mouth pressed into a thin, unhappy line, "We're going to get Mr. Tozier in for an MRI as soon as the blood tests come back." he started for the door, did a double-take because of Bill's black eye and visibly considered saying something, but kept moving instead, tossing his gloves in the trash on the way out.

"Swish." said Mike while Bill tried to figure out where to start; there were a thousand things he needed to say, so he began at the beginning.

"I g-got your medications." he said, because that felt somewhat normal.

"Thanks, man." Mike took the bag and as he did, Bill took his hand and his elbow and looked him in the eye and it turned out he didn't have to say anything else because Hanlon's face fell and then he looked away and he said, "I had to, Bill."

"Mikey -"

"It would have got out, you know it would have, it would have been all over the news and the cops would have kept all of you here and I know it looks insane, but I swear -"

" - Mike -"

"- I'm gonna make it right, Bill, I am, I swear -"

Bill brought a hand up into his friend's hair and pulled him to his chest and Mike felt held in a way he hadn't since he was a child, hot tears stinging in the corners of his eyes.

"We took care of it." he said.

"Bill?" Mike asked, looking up from his chest, unsure.

"It's taken care of." Bill repeated and Mike sank slowly against him, grasping at Bill's waist when the tears finally came.

* * *

Ben's face was contorted in concentration, his brows creating shadows and his lips pinned together as he placed his index and middle fingers on Richie's eyelids and tried to pull them down for a fifth time. Around him, Bev, Bill, and Mike watched uncomfortably as Tozier's eyes flapped open again, the exposed whites like red-veined marbles deep in his face. 

"Uh -" Mike began quietly and Denbrough nudged his arm, indicating that they should be solely observing.

"He's trying again." Bill whispered and Ben did it again with the same result. Ben stood with his fingers extended and his face in frozen focus as though he was trying to work out the problem from another angle.

"Nope, don't like that." he concluded and Bev took his wrist to stop him from making another attempt but he looked longingly at Richie as though he wanted nothing more than to keep trying. Ben turned to his friends with worried eyebrows, looking at each of them in turn and lingering on Mike.

"Sorry." Mike blurted out.

"Huh?" Ben asked, as though he'd forgotten what Mike should be sorry for, then he brought his hand up into mid-air, signalling as though holding a cup, "Oh, for, for the - ?"

"- the -" Mike agreed, making the same gesture.

"- yeah, no, I - I'm not sure that was really anyone's fault." Ben ventured.

"I really think that might have been my fault." Mike said.

"It's - um, psychoactive water under the bridge." Ben said and Mike dropped his face in his hands, so Ben slid his arm around his shoulders and pulled him close to his side, partly to reassure Hanlon and partly because he felt as though he was going to scream if someone didn't hug him in the very near future. They were all experts at compartmentalizing, having had twenty-seven years of practise when it came to burying trauma, but one of their friends were dead and another was comatose and then there was Richie, who wasn't present to make the jokes, whose condition was confusing and terrifying even for the medical staff, and he knew they were all silently panicking. It made him inexplicably want to throw something, to yell that they were all together, so could they all stop being so alone?

"I'll stay with him." Ben said.

"I'll stay with Eddie." Bev added as she moved for the door, hovering her palms at Mike and Bill's backs and they moved as though she was pushing them, "The two of you should get some sleep." Once they were far enough beyond the room that she was sure neither of them would wander back like stray puppies, she moved up to Mike and gestured for him to come closer and when he leaned down, she put her arms around him and held him into the crook of her neck and Bill watched Mike's confused face from over her shoulder.

"What's with today, today?" Mike asked weakly.

"Never leave us out of something like that again." she whispered, "Never, Mike, you don't have to do that, we're here."

He nodded.

"We're here, Mike." she repeated, and he nodded again, hard.

"Please, I can't cry again." Mike croaked, his face soft and pained, so Bev relinquished him, touched the side of his face, then headed down the hall. Mike stared at his feet for a while afterwards and Bill gave him the time to try and find his stoicism before they quietly headed for the car.

During the drive back, Bill firmly said:

"You're sleeping at the Town House."

"Alright." 

"In my room." 

"Huh?" Mike asked, looking over at him, then smiling unsurely after a few seconds, but when Denbrough glanced his way, his face was completely serious.

"I'm not fuckin' around, you were on the go-god-goddamn roof." Bill said, "Think of it like a slumber party, Hanlon, because you're staying within arm's reach for the next few nights."

Mike slid down in the seat until his knees touched the dashboard and Bill turned the radio on. It was Toto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on Twitter @BoWritesMore


	11. Prayers For Tozier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heed the tags.

Richie Tozier was in Los Angeles.

Richie Tozier was in New York.

Richie Tozier was in Georgia.

He was on a sidewalk in Milan.

He was in a hotel room in Long Beach.

He was in an office in Atlanta.

He was in a kitchen in Brooklyn.

He was in a clock tower in Derry.

The universe shuffled like cards in bike spokes, buzzing behind his ear drums as the world righted itself in flashes of ultraviolet and he looked down at his hands bathed in purple light and realized they weren't his, they were smaller and freckled and there was a ring flashing on his finger, a big sapphire that was new and heavy and apologetic.

Richie Tozier was on a sidewalk in Milan and then he was stepping off of it, turning and staring into traffic with his heart pounding in his chest as a truck bore down on him, its horn blaring frantically and then someone was wrenching him back. He looked up into the furious face of Tom Rogan as he squeezed his arms so hard that he knew they would bruise while Tom screamed again and again:

"What were you fucking thinking?"

And Beverly Marsh thought: I should have waited two more seconds.

The world flipped upside-down and he was on the ceiling like a frantic spider, staring into a suburban kitchen in Brooklyn and he looked down at a woman with her hair in curlers as she scraped diced strawberries from a cutting board into a blender, pausing to tap her scarlet french-tipped acrylic nails against the screen of her phone while her other hand reached into a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of pills and as she did, she said:

"You should have a protein shake if you're going to go out while it's so icy, you know how your blood sugar gets if you run before you have anything in your tummy."

He dropped into the doorway and he looked down at his Gucci loafers and his polished nails and then he looked up at his wife and she smiled beatifically and he said:

"Thanks, honey."

"What would you do without me?" Myra asked, then turned the blender on.

The floor opened beneath him and he dropped into a construction site and stared down at blueprints he didn't understand, the mud suctioning his boots as he turned on the spot and looked up from the enormous pit that had been dug and he looked up even higher at the lowering sun and a feeling of panic set into his chest and dropped into his stomach as he realized everyone else had left and he was there alone and he didn't want to go home, he didn't want to be there, he didn't want to be anywhere, he just wanted to disappear, he wanted to scream just so he could hear something because it felt like there was nothing and there was never going to be anything -

\- he didn't know where he was but he was staring at his cell phone and it said _Audra_ but the ringer was off and he thumbed the screen so it went black. He was standing on an empty suburban street in the middle of the night and he was looking into the gaping mouth of a storm drain, feeling sick and angry and confused. His phone buzzed in his pocket again and again and he wouldn't pick it up because she didn't understand, but how could she when he didn't understand either? He didn't know what was wrong with him. He didn't know what was happening to him, so he sat down on someone else's lawn and dropped his head in his hands but it kept dropping like it hadn't been attached.

Then Mike's home in Derry was far below him and he grabbed a splintering railing to steady himself; he was sweating profusely and when he turned on the spot he saw the backside of the library clock and its enormous big hand as it clicked another couple of inches to the side and told him it was two in the morning. Through the fogged glass panes around it he could see Derry was on fire but he knew it wasn't, not really, it was all in his head, it was just in his head, he was just asleep, it wasn't happening, none of it was real, it wasn't real. 

He wasn't real. 

He put his hands on the panes and he fell through them into an office and a dark-haired woman held his hand and looked at him adoringly and he knew he was so loved, that he couldn't have asked for someone better, that she would do anything for him and he would do anything for her. He was so stupidly in love that it hurt, which made this even harder.

"It's okay." she said, then looked across the room and so did he and the therapist smiled encouragingly.

"You can talk about anything here." she said.

"No, I can't." he said and took his glasses off; when he put them back on he was in a bed in a hotel room in Long Beach and Toto was on the radio. He knew it was his body, unwieldy and numb as he reached blindly for the alarm clock on the side table; he knocked an empty whiskey bottle and an empty pill bottle off of it and when he looked down at them the world spun wildly and he felt like he was dying but the problem was, he wasn't. He was awake. He had woken up.

"No, no," Richie said, because he had been here already and he didn't want to be here again, but he made it to the bathroom before he brought up the contents of the previous night's attempt, but then there was something coming up from his throat that shouldn't have been there, so he grabbed it and pulled at something hollow and plastic that didn't seem to have an end. He looked up at the mirror and Eddie Kaspbrak looked back at him with tubes in his mouth and nose and then his eyes started rolling like the read-out on a slot machine while blood blossomed on the front of his hospital gown in the shape of Mike's hand and he tried to scream but he couldn't.

He was in a hospital room in Derry with Eddie.

Eddie sat on the bed and Richie sat on a chair and they quietly watched each other and said nothing at all and then he was on a plane with Eddie and he kept looking over at him every few seconds because he couldn't help himself, he couldn't seem to stop, and Eddie finally looked his way with big, soft eyes and he nervously said:

"You've got to stop looking at me like that, Tozier."

"Like what?" Richie asked.

"You know like what." Eddie mumbled, but he was looking at his hands and he was smiling just a little and they both looked in opposite directions and then he felt fingers on his wrist, crawling slowly to his pulse, tender and kind, and when he looked over again it was Pennywise holding his arm and his fingers were razors and there was so much blood and he could hear screaming:

_"Stan, God, no, please!"_

He was in a field in the day surrounded by high grass, wearing khaki shorts and his knees were scraped and Stanley Uris, twelve years old, didn't want to risk getting his pants dirty, so he crouched across from him, toying slowly with a tuft of red fescue, his dark blonde curls lit up by the late summer sun.

"Stan." he said, his voice cracking and Uris looked over at him, concern softening his thoughtful features.

"I'm not crying, it's just puberty." Richie lied.

"I thought you'd be funnier by now." Stan replied, his eyes flexing slightly when Richie laughed and he looked back at the grass before he added, "You can talk about anything here."

"No, I can't." Richie said, "This isn't real anyways."

"It's not not real." Stan said, "It's just a different kind of real."

"I don't know what's happening to me." Richie said, "Am I dead?"

"No, you just don't listen very well. None of you do, none of you ever have, I was always the reasonable one."

"Yeah, we could have used that this week." Richie admitted and Stan nodded, "Why'd you do it, man?"

"Why did you?" Stan asked.

Richie looked at his hands and realized they were normal again and he stood up and turned in the field and saw his family standing crowded together shoulder-to-shoulder-to-shoulder, all staring down.

"Please make this stop." Richie said, heartbroken.

"I can't." Stan said and when Richie didn't walk towards it, it came towards him, like the world was dragged his way and then he was staring down into his father's grave with his mother on one side of him and Stan on the other. Richie didn't want to talk but he couldn't stop himself because it had already happened and he was just going through the motions as he turned to his mother and said:

"Tell me you'll be okay." 

"I'll never be okay again." Maggie Tozier said quietly, "My husband is gone."

"Yeah." Richie said and wished he had said something else, looking down at the casket and thinking _that was my dad_ ; he didn't cry but he did reach for his mother's arm, but he thought better of it and put his hand into his coat instead.

"Where are you going after this?" she asked, watching his face carefully.

"Uh." Richie said, fingering the bottle of sedatives in his pocket, "Los Angeles, yeah, Long Beach is the next stop."

"You can't stay a few days instead?" she asked and he couldn't look at her when he shook his head and then she added, "I wish you would tell me."

"What?" he asked, panic shooting through him as he met her eyes and there was warm, motherly love and anxiety in her gaze and it made him hate himself because he knew she would never look at him the same way again, he knew everything would change.

"Whatever it is you're not telling me." she said, and then she didn't say anything else and then it was all gone and it was just him and Stan, both adults, and Richie's eyes were stinging as he looked at him for the first time in twenty-seven years.

"You look just like I thought you would." he admitted.

"You've seen me like this before." Stan said.

"No, man, you didn't show up." 

"And you thought I was weak for it."

Shame shot through Richie.

"I was angry." he admitted, "I never thought you were weak, I was angry."

"I've was so careful my whole life, I did everything they said I should - the therapy, the medications, the long walks and deep breaths, the distracting jigsaw puzzles and kale and sleep stories." Stan said, "When I left Derry, I never forgot, Richie. Every day I remembered, I couldn't stop remembering and that last day, I could feel it, I knew it was coming." Stan wrung his hands the way Mike did sometimes and he said, "It was like - it got in. It got into me, in Neibolt, and it never left. It never does. But I should have stayed."

"I wish you had stayed." Richie said, his voice breaking, "Stan, I don't know what to do." 

"It's okay," Stan replied as he looked up at the sky, "Bev almost has it. I knew she would be the one. Just tell him to breathe."

"What?" Richie asked, "Who?"

"See you later, Rich." Stan said and then he pushed Richie and he fell backwards into the grave that had pulled up behind him like a taxi, bracing himself for impact that never came and then he was falling and falling and everyone was falling with him, a vast empty space where all of the losers club was falling with him. He looked over at Bill and saw the deadlights in his face and he looked up and they were shining above him like glowing eyes; a low buzz filled his ears and grew until it was deafening and he couldn't move and he felt like he was disappearing. He was going to disappear.

And then they were all reaching for him: Bill and Bev, Ben and Mike, Eddie and Stan, their hands were on his arms and on his shoulders, gripping his shirt and holding on tight, linking together with cuts on their palms, and Mike Hanlon took hold of his face and made him a mask of blood and he said:

"It worked last time, right?"

And then Richie was in a hospital room in Derry and Mike was hovering over him, holding his face, and when he blindly looked around himself, what was left of their ragged team was watching with shock that transformed into joy and then Richie asked:

"What just happened?"

Mike dropped his head onto Richie's chest, laughing with relief.

"Did what I think happened just happen?" Richie asked and then Ben, wide-eyed, nodded slowly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore


	12. It Fades In The Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains references to psychosis, medical restraints, suicidal ideation, and depersonalization. Also blanket forts. Please heed the tags.

**Six Months Prior**

Mike Hanlon woke up hot and groggy and nauseated and sweating so profusely that his shirt was sealed to his chest and stomach, so he peeled it off and climbed out of bed; when he checked the time, he realized he had only been asleep for an hour and the Ambien was just beginning to peak. When he stood, the world began to slowly rotate around him, so he used the table for support until he could get the rest of the way to the kitchen and get a glass out of the cupboard, which fell from his sweaty hand and burst to pieces in the sink and when he looked down at the shattered glass he thought: _I am not me._

It was the kind of tranquilizer-induced thought that would slip between his fingers by morning, but in the moment it felt like the most important thing in the world, as though he had hit upon some horrible hidden truth, something he had been blind to. He stared out at Derry and watched the distant wheel at the carnival that had been shuttered for the winter; without the bright lights to offset its enormity, it looked like it was surveilling the town, it looked as though it was up to something.

"I am okay." Mike said out loud, dripping sweat with his hands set on either side of his sink to stabilize himself and then the police scanner to his right crackled, which it couldn't have, but it did, and he looked over at it and in a distorted voice it said: _come home_. 

Then he realized that he was holding a shard of glass and he was staring at the tidal wave curve that ended in a jagged point while the radio repeated itself: _come home_.

He dropped the glass back into the sink and backed away and said:

"No, not again."

And then he had splinters in his hands and he was staring through the glass panes of the library clock tower, it was two in the morning and the town was on fire, it was a blazing inferno growing higher and burning hotter, a crawling orange parasite devouring everything in its path and Derry was gone.

None of it was real.

He wasn't real.

Mike thought: _I am not me._

And when he backed away from the clock face, he saw a reflection that wasn't his own, so he covered his face with his hands and sat on the floor with his knees to his chest and he waited for all of it to go away.

* * *

**While Richie Was D̴̺̝̦̠̩̯̠̈͋̐̈͑ͅr̵̢̲̺̤̮̪̺̣͗ȩ̶͕͓̤͚̳̑̓̏̔̄ā̵̝̦̹͔m̷̨͈̼̩̗͌̈́̿͒̒͂̾̕i̶͉̝͗̈́͌n̶͎̤̟͙̄͗́̄̍͝g̸̖̗̪̲͍͗͊͛̉͝  
**

Bill Denbrough sat on a bed in a room in the Town House with his eyes shut and he tried not to think, but the more he tried not to think, the faster his thoughts came. He had been in Derry for a little over a week but the twenty-seven years prior to that week seemed somehow uniform and opaque while everything before those years was becoming vivid. When he closed his eyes, he could see his father standing in the garage looking at nothing at all and he could see his mother staring down at the keys of her piano like she didn't recognize them anymore. He could remember a single note being hit in the dead of night and going downstairs to find her sitting in the dark.

"You see him too." Bill said suddenly and opened his eyes to look at Mike as he stood awkwardly in the doorway, dressed in flannel pyjamas with buttons and a folded collar and a little shirt pocket that had his reading glasses in it, "In the stairwell, when Richie -" he didn't want to summon the image but they both thought about it anyways, how it had seemed like his head was barely staying on his shoulders, "You said ' _you see him too_?'"

"Yeah." Mike said, "I wasn't sure if -" he trailed off and they stared at each other until Hanlon had to look away, overwhelmed by the eye contact.

"- if he was real." Bill finished for him and Mike tried to look busy inspecting the paint so he asked, "Mike?" he got to his feet and he watched his friend shrink slightly, so he touched his wrists and he said, "How long have you been seeing things?"

"I'm not, I'm not, I haven't." Mike said quickly, closing his eyes while he said it and this time Bill knew what it meant.

"You don't need to lie to me." Bill said and Mike seemed to deflate under his hands, so he switched to holding his upper arms and he said, "Mike."

"This week - sucks." Mike said and he sounded so belligerent that Bill couldn't help a laugh, which was enough to draw a weak smile from Hanlon, though it was gone as quickly as it had surfaced and he stood quietly for a few seconds before he said, "It never stopped."

It was like being hit in the gut; Bill felt like the admission had actually winded him.

"What?" Bill asked, going back over every moment he had been with Mike, trying to find what he had missed, where he had gone wrong, what he hadn't seen. It wasn't just that he had stayed in Derry: Mike had been suffering for almost three decades and Bill was sure he should have done something. He should have been there.

"It never stopped," Mike repeated, louder than he meant to, but only because he felt like he would never say it if he didn't force it out, "It isn't all the time, I just have bad days. Phases, I have phases -"

"This week?" Bill asked and Mike nodded, "What have you been seeing?"

Mike thought about Richie asking him to check the bath tub, about how he had pulled the curtain aside and then lied to him: _there's nothing in here, Rich._

"Stan." Mike whispered.

"Where?" Bill asked, his voice urgent, "Wuh-when?"

A crawling feeling moved under Denbrough's scalp as Mike's eyes pulled up and over to the corner of the room.

* * *

"Come here often?" Ben asked when they met up at the hospital coffee machine and if any other man in the world had said it to her, Bev would have laughed in his face, but there was an innocence and a self-awareness in everything that came out of Hanscom's mouth that made it impossible for her to feel anything except fondness. Intellectually she knew she hadn't been around him long enough to be able to genuinely know him and yet emotionally she felt as though she had never _stopped_ knowing him, like he had always been there in some capacity.

Bev knew it would be objectively insane to try to convince Ben to come home with her when he had his own life and she had hers, but for the first time in a long time, Bev didn't know what her future would be like, but she had decided that she would never lose contact with any of her friends ever again. They would have to work for it if they wanted to shake her off because they were hers again. Ben was hers again. She was hers again.

"Bev?" Ben asked, privately a little terrified by the gleam she got in her eye sometimes, as though the monkey part of her brain had suddenly come to the forefront and he was staring at a version of her that was going to strip naked, roll in mud, and jump on anyone who looked at her sideways. He would not say this out loud.

"Huh?" Bev asked, slurping her latte and immediately regretting it, the coffee was bleak and bitter and the foam on top was sour and vaguely chemical. Her features bunched up around her nose before she leaned over the garbage can and let the contents of her mouth fall into it, a line of spit hanging for a moment before it disconnected. While Ben watched, she grabbed a fistful of napkins and used them to blot her extended tongue, then spent several seconds picking the paper off of it.

"It's not good." Bev said finally.

"Yeah, no, I kind of pieced that together from the given clues." Ben replied, then offered his tea to her and she stared down at it.

"What am I looking at?" she asked.

"No, do you want it?" Ben clarified.

"What? No." Bev said, "Drink your tea, there are starving children."

"Which ones?"

"Which starving children? Like I know some personally?"

"Yeah." Ben said, committed to the bit.

"You're so weird." Bev said, setting her latte onto a pay phone as they passed it, "How's Richie?"

"Well, they taped his eyes shut, so that's -" Ben didn't know how to finish the sentence so he just drank his tea as punctuation.

"They taped his eyes shut?" Bev repeated, "With tape?"

"They taped his eyes shut with tape." Ben agreed, "It's awful, where are you going?"

"I want to see Richie with his eyes taped shut." Bev said and followed through, stepping into the room to goggle at Tozier with a mix of horror and fascination; she had spent the last two hours sitting in silence with Eddie and was looking for anything that would stop her distress, so she wasn't sure why she had thought looking at her _other_ comatose friend would help. She felt worse and probably should have seen that coming, "Do you ever just want to like," Bev extended her hands, clutching the air, "Shake them really hard?"

"No." Ben said.

"Oh." Bev said, inexplicably disappointed, "I do."

"That's probably normal." Ben ventured, his voice pitching up slightly at the end, like the implication of a question mark without actually utilizing one - it was the most diplomatic punctuation that Bev had ever heard.

"You're just being nice, that's not normal." she said, "I'm just full of rage."

"Do you think he can hear us?" Ben asked, "I think people in comas can still hear, right?"

"Oh, I hate that." Bev said, then leaned over Richie and yelled in his face, "Richie, get up!"

"I don't think that works." Ben said.

"It might." Bev said, knowing it wouldn't but she felt a little better for having yelled; Ben might have been right about the guitar string metaphor. She kept leaning over Richie, inspecting him from up close in a way she knew she wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, not entirely sure why she wanted to but feeling as though she needed to while she had the opportunity. There were fine lines around his eyes, strips of silver in his curls, and there was an old papery scar on his forehead that she reached up and touched, stroking her thumb across it.

"The rock fight with Bowers." Ben said and Bev immediately thought of the quarry, standing around Henry's body with Richie and Bill, staring at a nearby grate while Bill said: _If we can get his head through, we can probably get the rest through._

They couldn't get his head through. She needed to not think about that.

"Yeah." Bev said finally, then looked at Ben, "Do you remember a lot yet?"

"Most of it, I think." 

"Do you wish you couldn't?" she asked as she straightened up, studying Ben's handsome face while it flexed in thought; he prodded at the bed railing, his lips slightly pursed, twisting a little on the spot as though he needed movement to process.

"Some of it." he said finally.

"But not all of it."

"But not all of it." Ben agreed.

"Your - token, or whatever we're calling it now, the important things we burned for no reason." Bev said, watching Ben flinch, "You always had it on you."

His face flushed to a shade of neon and he nodded.

"Did you remember me the whole time?" she asked and she wasn't sure which answer she wanted - both were a different kind of awful.

"No," Ben said, drawling it out in a way that was indecisive, "No, but also - yes? I remembered something that was -" he squinted at the wall, holding his cupped hands together as he picked over his words, "- Bev-shaped. Like a cameo."

"A silhouette of a person." she said and he nodded.

"I couldn't ever see the details. Of anything, really."

"Did you ever wonder why?"

"All the time - did you?"

The answer was that she'd had too much else to think about because the moment she had left Derry, she'd set into her life like a starved animal, taking every opportunity for sensation and chaos and control that she was presented with. She had ripped her way through Portland as her memories of her childhood faded, trying every single thing she had been denied the opportunity to try. There had been a glorious period where she had been scared but she had been _free_.

And then there had been Tom and without her realizing it, in the most fucked up possible way, history had repeated itself.

She almost said it out loud. She thought about it, she wondered if Ben knew. She wondered if all of them had seen the warped image of her father and had figured it out - the thought made her feel a little sick, exposed and unclean. She pushed it down, then down even further, where it couldn't set its little claws into her viscera, she pushed it into her legs where they would ache the next time her stress heightened and she would stretch and wonder what was wrong with her.

"I sort of forgot that there was anything to remember, except when I was dreaming." she said, "But it usually faded by morning."

"Are your nightmares always like that?" he asked.

"Yeah." Bev said, meeting his eyes, feeling herself displaying a challenge in her expression but unable to stop it, a defense mechanism that had roots in her blood: _Does that scare you? Will you grow to resent a woman who wakes up screaming every night? Will you tell me to stop being a child when you're too tired to sit up in bed and check on me? Can you deal with me? Will I still be pretty when I'm vomiting over the side of the bed? Will you leave me when I'm not your dream girl anymore?_

"Maybe we can tape your eyes, maybe that's something." Ben said and jerked a thumb at Richie. Bev began to laugh and then without any real transition, she began to cry and Ben said, "Oh no." 

"I'm sorry." Bev said as Ben put his arms around her.

"Was the latte really that bad?" he asked, his voice slightly high-pitched and she laugh-sobbed into his chest and slapped his ribs.

"I'm fine." Bev said, laughing and crying and choking on air.

"Are you sure? Because you seem like maybe you're not fine."

"I'm fine." Bev repeated louder, then wiped her eyes on his shirt, "I'm a guitar string."

"I'm a woodwind." Ben said without explaining.

"Like a flute?"

"A recorder, I think." he said.

"A recorder is just a flute with dreams."

"I'm a flute with dreams." Ben said and they stood in place for a while before he asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not yet." she said and when she eased away, she had left a wet spot on the centre of his chest and then she thought about her dream and the pit that had opened up in her sternum before she said, "I should get back to Eddie - not that he's going anywhere."

Ben peered at her.

"I think I'm just making up for Richie not being here to say it." she explained.

"It's a burden to bear." 

Ben walked her to Eddie's room even though it was only down the hall and when they stood outside the door, Bev took his hand and looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and said:

"This was a great date, we should go out again some time."

"Definitely. Friday?" Ben played along, "I was thinking the morgue next time?"

"Let's hope not." she said.

"Oh god, I didn't mean it that way."

"I know, I was just fucking with you." Bev said, then went into Eddie's room.

* * *

Mike felt like maybe he shouldn't have said anything. 

They were side-by-side laying in the dark and he was aware of Denbrough's chest moving a few inches to his left and he knew by his breathing that he was still awake even though they had been there for the better part of an hour. He was certain that he had freaked him out but Bill hadn't said anything so he resolved to do the same.

"I freaked you out." Mike blurted out and his voice seemed so loud in a room that had been completely silent that they both jolted, "Damn, freaked myself out, too."

"You di-di-didn't freak me out." 

"Then why do you keep looking over at the corner?" 

"It wasn't you that freaked me out." Bill amended.

"I'm the one who told you I see dead people." 

"That's so strange." 

"The dead people thing?"

"That he's dead. I know that sounds -" Bill didn't know to finish the sentence because he didn't know exactly how it sounded, "- it just seems wrong. Like when Juh-Juh-Geor-Georg-" he thought about continuing to try but then quietly said, "Well, you know what I mean. It just doesn't seem right." 

Mike wrung his hands.

"I think he's angry at me." 

"What?" Bill asked, using all of his willpower not to look over at the corner again, "Stan?"

Mike nodded.

"Does he look angry?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know if he looks angry?"

"I try not to look at his face."

There was another long pause.

"Why?" Bill asked finally.

"Because, usually," Mike said, trying to figure out if there was a way to say what he needed to say without actually saying it, but then he realized there wasn't so he held off on answering at all until Bill prodded him sharply in the pectoral, "Because he doesn't have one, usually."

"He doesn't have one what?" Bill asked, desperately hoping he was following this whole thing wrong.

"A face."

Bill sat up in bed so suddenly that the whole thing shook.

"Ghost Stan doesn't have a fuh-fucking face?" Bill asked, then realized he was yelling, so he dropped his voice, "He's juh-just standing in the corner with no face?" His tone was not dissimilar from someone whose dinner guest had turned up with their dick hanging out, "I'm turning a light on."

"No, don't -" Mike began, but the light was on and he could see Bill - frazzled and frowning and squinting in the brightness - and then his eyes wandered where he knew they shouldn't and Stan was at the end of the bed.

Mike's eyes pulled slowly and helplessly upwards and then he just laid there and stared.

"Mike?" Bill whispered, looking between him and the end of the bed, "Mike, is he there?"

"You don't really have to whisper." Mike whispered.

"Is he there? Did you look?"

"He's there. I looked. I'm looking." Mike, stiffly.

"Does he have a face?" Bill, frenzied.

"Nope." Mike, dead inside.

"Why doesn't he have a face?"

"I tried asking him once and he made fun of me, so I couldn't tell you." Mike was outwardly calm but he was starting to feel like someone was about to peform that trick where they yanked a tablecloth off without disturbing anything else, except the tablecloth was his sanity. He was certain he would become completely insane, but remain very chill about it.

"What's there instead?" Bill asked.

"Bill, I get that you're really curious right now on account of there being a ghost at the end of the bed and I understand that, and I appreciate how willing you are to just accept it," Mike said patiently, feeling like his eyes were locked into place, "But I'm roughly eight seconds away from jumping out the window."

Bill turned the light off.

"That's not better, man." Mike said, frantic.

Bill turned the light back on, he hovered.

"What do I do?" Bill asked, because Hanlon's face had gone gray.

"I thought this was what you wanted." Stan said, though there was no mouth to speak of, just an endless tunnel where his face should have been, viscera-red and woven with blue pulsing veins and in the centre of it all there was a growing glow and a hum that Mike could feel in his bones, "Didn't you want to look?"

"Umm." Mike said, the consonant extending to match the buzz in his ears.

"Mike?" Bill asked, looking from him to the end of the bed and back again, then grabbing him by the shoulders, trying to get him to look his way, but then Mike's eyes started sliding back so Bill did the only thing that came to mind and he rolled onto him and yanked the sheets over their heads and clasped his arms around the other man to protect him while he said, " _It's not real, it isn't real_ -"

* * *

Ben did eight crossword puzzles, three sudoku puzzles, and nine word searches. He did wall push-ups and squats until his arms and thighs were shaking. He read the labels on everything in the room and paced the horseshoe-shaped free space available to him, clapping his hands in front of himself and then behind himself just to move. He put a water bottle on his forehead and tested how long he could balance it while walking until he got to the vending machines and caught sight of himself in the glass, a big bearded idiot with a water bottle on his head. He took it off and turned in place like a microwave plate, trying to figure out where to go, what to do; he thought about bothering Bev but reminded himself that others generally needed time to themselves.

He wandered the halls, he ran up and down the stairs and stopped on the third floor when he noticed a pale pink smear on the wall that someone had clearly tried to clean and then he decided he didn't want to run up and down the stairs anymore. He returned to floor level and he examined pamphlets in plastic slots on the wall.

**Stop the Clot, Spread the Word!**  
**Your Rights: Mental Health Act**  
**Suicide Prevention**

He picked up the last one and went back to Tozier's room and when he sat back down there was a noise - a crinkling, like plastic, and then the sound of something pulling and when he looked up, one of Richie's eyes were open, the tape still stuck to his upper eyelid. The effect was unsettling, so Ben moved to tape it back down and when he did, Richie said:

"Hnhg."

"What?" Ben asked.

"Nhgh." Richie clarified.

"I'm going to get a nurse." Ben got up and Richie jolted hard on the bed, another garbled noise leaving him, his long legs kicking and his arms pulling against the restraints and the sight made Ben want to throw up, so he reached for him, undoing the cuffs and talking hurriedly and softly, "I'll get them off, I'm taking them off, Rich, it's okay, you're in the hospital, alright? They sedated you, but it's okay, it is. There's some weird stuff happening, but the doctor is going to -"

Then Ben was on the floor with tinnitus and it took him several seconds before he figured out that Richie had hit him. In his confused daze, he looked at the pamphlet where it laid open in front of him and all it said in glossy black letters was:

**EddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEddieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieEDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDieDie**

Ben staggered to his feet and tried to stop Richie from leaving but it was like being struck by a pick-up truck and Ben felt the drywall fracture when his back hit it, fully knocking the wind out of him while Richie staggered out the door like he had forgotten how to walk. 

* * *

"Bill." Mike whispered.

"Yeah?" 

"Bill, are you on top of me?"

"Yeah. Your eyes went weird."

"My eyes went weird so you got on top of me?" Mike asked, his arms pinned to his sides by Bill's legs.

"Yeah." Bill said.

"And made a blanket fort?" Mike asked.

"Yeah." Bill said, then felt he had to explain himself so he repeated, "Your eyes went weird."

"What kind of weird?"

"Like Richie's did in the huh-hospital."

They were both quiet for a while, laying under the comforter together before Mike said:

"Bill, do you still need to be on top of me?"

Bill slid mostly off of him but kept his arm stretched up to keep the blanket firmly over their heads; it was an awkward process and Denbrough accidentally prodded him in the nuts with his knee but they both politely said nothing about it and Bill gave him a few minutes to silently recover.

"How long do we st-stay under here?" Denbrough asked.

"I don't know, I'm worried like," Mike said, his eyes flicking from side-to-side, "Like what if we bring the blanket down and he's leaning over me or something?"

"That would be bad." Bill agreed, "Can you ask him?"

"Can I ask him?"

"Yeah, can you ask him if he's still there?"

"Can I ask the ghost if he's still there?"

"Yeah."

Mike thought about it.

"I don't know if he's exactly going to be honest about that."

"Can you tell him to go away?"

"He makes fun of me when I do that, too."

"Ghost Stan is _awful_." Bill said, turning onto his back so they were shoulder-to-shoulder, "What if we just pull the blanket down for a second then put it back? Really quick." They looked at each other, then both nodded. Bill took Mike's sweating hand, "On three?"

They counted, they brought the blanket down, then back up. 

"I think he's gone." Mike said and then he began to chuckle.

"Why are you laughing?" Bill asked, but Mike's laugh was infectious, "Why are we laughing?"

"I'm so distressed." Mike chortled.

"Me too. I think we might be hysterical." Bill said, wiping tears from his eyes, "No, stop, stop, I can't do this right now, I can't." he tried to stop, but then his voice broke when he added: "We're two grown men hiding under a blanket from a ghost."

When they finally calmed down, Bill asked:

"Where do you think he went?"

* * *

Something that looked like Richie Tozier was moving down the hall of the Derry Public Hospital, meandering on shaking legs and ping-ponging off the walls as he veered continuously into them, slamming into the outposts of doorways and hand rails, gripping anything he passed for support and mumbling consonants as he went.

Back in his room, Ben used the footboard of the bed to get to his feet, his stomach lurching when he straightened up and blinding pain shot through his ribs on both sides, so he moved with his back hunched to try and offset it, getting to the hallway in time to see Bev as she stood frozen and staring as she was approached, an unlit cigarette between her teeth.

"Richie?" she asked, her voice suddenly small in a way that she would reflect on later and hate herself for, and then she saw Ben - doubled over and bleeding from the head - and she backed away several steps before she broke into a run, sprinting for Eddie's room and thinking: _it wants him, it wants him, it's after Eddie and it can't have him, I won't let you, you can't have him._

As she ran, Richie caught her jacket by the shoulder and dragged her backwards so she turned to try and fight him off, terrified by the sight of him with one eye open and rolled back and the other taped shut. His face was slack and gray and a familiar gaping hole had opened up in his chest, exposing everything inside of him, his lungs inflating past where his chest wall should have been, expanding so huge that they were going to touch her, they were going to touch her and it was going to get in.

Bev kicked him in the knee as hard as she could and then she screamed as he forced her backwards into Eddie's room while Ben tried to make it down the hall; she screamed again when the door slammed shut in Hanscom's face and he tried to ram it down with his shoulder while the sparse medical staff emerged into the hallway; she screamed a third time, and then there was silence.

* * *

Ben was staring at a clock, watching the minutes tick by, leaning against a wall with his ribs pulsating and his head bleeding and his throat raw from trying to get a response from inside. In the end, it took one nurse, two orderlies, and twelve minutes to get the door open and when they did, they found Eddie Kaspbrak peacefully in his bed, Richie Tozier catatonic on the floor, and Beverly Marsh - gray-faced and shaking - leaning out the window and smoking like her life depended on it.

She threw the cigarette away when they came in and before any of them could say a word, she said:

"There's something wrong with Eddie's lungs and if you don't do something about it, he's going to die in his sleep tomorrow night." Then she left the room, sat down on the floor at Ben's feet while he stared at her in horror and relief, then she tugged his jeans until he joined her and then they sat until help eventually came to them.

* * *

When morning came, Eddie was taken from his room to Radiography and while he was gone, the rest of them sat around Richie's bed in utter silence, all of them exhausted; Bill's face had become a palette of black and blue on one side, Ben couldn't find a comfortable position for longer than five minutes at a time, Bev was pallid, and Mike was squirrelly.

"I'm nuh-never going on vacation with any of you ever again." Bill said and all of them smiled just a little.

"This was the worst." Mike agreed.

"It wasn't so bad." Ben said, looking at Bev.

"You just like me, your ribs are broken, this was terrible." Bev said.

"Yeah." Ben replied and they all fell quiet again. 

After a while, Mike sat up in his seat, perking up like a prairie dog gauging the environment, then he passed his eyes over each of them, then he looked at Richie. He got to his feet, he crossed his arms, he uncrossed them, he paced back and forth a couple of times, then he said:

"Hey, so, I'm gonna -" Mike pointed at Richie, "I'm just gonna -" 

"You're gonna what?" Ben asked.

Mike shuffled over to Richie's bedside, casting cagey looks around himself.

"You're gonna what, Mike?" Bill asked, half-poised to get out of his seat, one hand extended slightly.

"I just, I think," Mike said, placing his hands on either side of Richie's face.

Bev slowly got her phone out, never taking her eyes off of what was happening while she thumbed for the camera app.

"It worked last time, right?" Mike asked, his tone apologetic just before he leaned in and kissed Richie on the mouth. When he pulled back, the silence was deafening as every single one of them held their breath, and then Richie opened his sticky eyes and asked:

"What just happened?"

Mike half collapsed onto him, laughing with relief.

"Did what I think happened just happen?" Richie asked and then Ben, wide-eyed, nodded slowly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore


	13. You've Seen Me Like This Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains references to domestic violence and is about grief, suicide, and time being a tangled ball of string. Please heed the tags.

**Seven Months Prior**

Beverly Marsh chewed on the side of her ring finger.

She did it slowly, methodically, pinching the flaring little corner of skin near her nail and working it between her teeth until she came away with a speck of herself and as she did, she liked to imagine she was undoing her body, denaturing it with her incisors. She inspected the damage for a while afterwards, running her thumb across where it had just begun to ache and then she would do it again. Sometimes she would lose time just gnawing, sitting at her desk with an inch of proposals to look at, self-cannibalizing with no end in sight.

It had been four days since her last cigarette.

She had taken to bringing a change of clothes with her - running pants and a t-shirt and a ball cap that she kept in a gym bag beneath her desk - and she would get into them and wait until the hallway was clear, then take the elevator down to the underground parking, exit to a back alley, and duck into an alcove beside a dumpster where she would smoke until she felt sick.

She gave herself twenty minutes to just stand there afterwards, using her lunch break to air out before going back the way she had arrived, washing her face and hands and arms in the bathroom sink; she had learned that citrus soap worked best to get the smell out. She would brush her teeth and change her clothes and then spend the rest of the day with a dropping sensation in her chest, like being in a plummeting elevator.

Sometimes she went weeks without a cigarette, telling herself it wasn't worth it: it was bad for her lungs, it would cause lines around her mouth and eyes, it would discolour her teeth, it would weaken her bones, she could have a stroke, she could start looking old and _that wouldn't be any good for either of them, now would it_? There were a thousand reasons not to do it, so for weeks she didn't, until something inevitably came over her, something in her gut would speak in a cold, hard voice and say: _you can do whatever the fuck you want._

And then she did.

But she went to corners and alcoves, she hid and felt small and pathetic every time because it was all nothing, it wasn't really a rebellion, it didn't mean anything when she knew that all it would take was getting caught and she would crumple and she would say she was sorry and she would say she wouldn't do it again and she would ask for him please not to -

Copper flooded her tongue and she pulled away to look at the bleeding gouge she had left in the side of her finger and she said:

"Fuck it."

And then she wrenched open her desk drawer and pulled out the pack and took the stairs down, still wearing her blue silk and cotton Armani dress that would catch all the smoke in its delicate fabric. She stood in the middle of the alleyway getting blood on her cigarette and she shakily brought it to her mouth, jumping when the wind sent litter skidding in front of her and she thought:

_He is going to catch you._

Then she thought:

_I am not his child._

The lighter flared red and then something else flared purple and Beverly reeled back until she hit her hip off the dumpster, stumbling until her back was to the brick wall; across the alley, a woman with wide and terrified eyes stared back at her and then she was gone again, like a flickering television.

Afterwards, standing alone in the mid-day chill, Bev inhaled raggedly, overcome with the urge to release it as a scream.

* * *

**Five Months Prior**

_We're sorry, but all of our representatives are busy right now._

A fan moved overhead on the lowest setting and each time a blade passed above Richie, it made a _whup_ sound that he felt in his teeth, like something was being hammered into the nerves while he sat on the floor of his kitchen with his back to the cupboards, nursing a sour stomach with ginger ale that only made him feel sticky and thirsty.

_We value your call._

He kept the phone tucked between his shoulder and his jaw while he groped at the nearby counter, fingering a yellow post-it block his way, uncapping a red sharpie with his teeth; he had brushed them, but he still had the acrid taste from that morning and the previous night in the back of his throat.

_We're sorry to keep you waiting, did you know you can find a range of answers to questions on our website?_

The felt tip dragged audibly over the paper and while his head was pounding it had the same effect as nails on a chalkboard, or a fork scraping against a plate with a ceramic squeal, but he kept doing it anyways, awash in the awful amplification of every sense he had because it was more present than he'd felt in weeks. It was better than nothing.

**F**

_\- to leave a message you can press '7' at any time -_

**U**

_\- you can call back, or continue to hold -_

**C**

Then someone was staring at him through the reflective silver surface of the refrigerator, standing inches to his right, and Richie jolted up from the floor of an apartment he should have been alone in, the phone clattering away from him as he back-pedaled into the counter.

There was nothing there.

Of course there was nothing there.

He was just hungover.

_\- you are currently number two in the queue._

It was impossible, but he could have sworn he'd just seen himself.

_You're up next._

**Fuck.**

* * *

**One week prior**

Being dead hadn't provided any clarity.

This was very frustrating for Stanley Uris, who stood looking at his own casket at his own funeral while his own family stood around him in mute horror. It was a sunny Thursday and there was an air of disbelief, their grief was incredulous and confused and when they spoke they said things like:

_Why would he do this?_  
_Everything was going so well for him._  
_What could he have been thinking?_  
_I never knew, I never knew._  
_He never said._  
_He seemed so happy._  
_Why would he do this?_

But Patty, she said nothing. 

She hadn't said anything for two days, she stood on the wet grass and she just stared at the open ground he was about to be lowered into. Stanley wanted to put his arms around her and touch her face and brush back the forelock that always curled near her right temple, knowing it would just go back where it wanted to go, but it had always been an excuse to touch her, not that he had ever needed one. His touch had always been welcome and on the days where his hands hadn't found her often enough for her liking, she had brought them to her, pulling him by the wrists until the distance was closed.

It seemed unfair that he should still have to yearn or feel anything at all, but as he stood beside his wife he could see her grief as pulsating light around her and he thought it was strange that sadness should look so red. 

El Maleh Rahamim was read, his casket was lowered, dirt was deposited, and when nearly everyone had begun to cross the grass, Patty Uris dropped to her knees at the edge of his grave like something had split inside of her and then she used every ounce of her strength to scream, wordless and blood-curdling; she screamed and no one could stop her because the arms that held her weren't his.

In life, in his worst moments, Stanley Uris had fallen back on the morbid reassurance that death would mean an absence of pain but it turned out the one cold comfort was patently untrue - whatever was left of him was still capable of aching.

_Why would he do this?_

He wished he knew.

He used to think he did.

* * *

**???**

Time wasn't really a thing, as it turned out.

Stanley had heard it in passing: _time is a construct_. It was just something people said sometimes but it was a concept that was almost impossible to grasp in any meaningful way - or it _had been_ impossible. If someone had asked him to put it into words - which no one would, he understood that he was past his prime for holding conversations - he still wasn't sure he would have been able to. 

The closest he could have gotten to an explanation was that he had always thought of time as a one-way street, but it turned out it was more like a multi-level parking garage with stairs that went no where and elevators that got jammed and sometimes the floors shifted and separated from each other and no one could find their fucking car. 

Navigation was a nightmare. The first time he tried it, he had walked in on his own birth and had walked right back out again; he had needed to lay down for a while afterwards because he was sure the infant version of himself had looked right at him and he didn't know if that kind of thing came with consequences. 

He had no way of gauging how long he had been roaming around, trying to figure out where and when he was, but he kept falling into moments in his life without necessarily meaning to. Sometimes it wasn't so bad. In fact, sometimes it was good, like when he got to watch himself meet his wife for the first time:

_Patty Blum, dark haired and smiling with a dripping ice cream cone in her hand, pausing on the sidewalk to watch him try to get a clear shot of a painted bunting, waiting until he was done before she said anything._

_"If I whistle at you, will you take mine next?"_

He kept that picture of her in his wallet for the rest of his life. 

He went back to that moment often just so he could watch her watch him, so he could be near her before she had even known who he was - he felt a little like he was doing something wrong, but in a good way.

But then there were moments he didn't want to go back to, the ones that he wished hadn't happened at all because they were embarrassing or they were terrible or they were devastating, like the first time Patty had ever seen him have a panic attack. He had ended up crouched on the floor with her arms around him and his face buried in her chest as she rocked him slowly side to side while he apologized again and again.

Watching it happen, he considered that maybe it wasn't as terrible as he remembered it, that there were worse things in the world than being held when hurting.

He should have told her everything then, but how could he have?

What would he have told her? 

Could he tell her now? 

Could he get someone else to tell her now?

Could he do that?

Eventually he meandered into a restaurant and he stood looking at a table full of people whose faces were both new and familiar and all of them were watching an empty seat, so the first time around, he sat down in it and no one saw. He was just starting to wonder if there was a way that he could make them notice when it happened: 

**Guess Stanley Could Not Cut It.**

Apparently almost three decades hadn't made Pennywise funnier.

He wondered what his fortune cookie would have said, if he had showed up alive - the context of their mass hysteria would have had to change - but he supposed it didn't matter, he would never know what difference he would have made.

Still, they looked like idiots. 

"You look like idiots." Stan said out loud somewhere around the 10th time he watched it happen and his voice was absorbed into the chaos so he wandered around the room, picking his way over spilled noodles and broken beer bottles, not wanting to get glass in the bottom of shoes that didn't exist: the soles of his soul. Patty would have appreciated that. 

Time was meaningless, so Stan could wander through their three minutes of terror for as long as he cared to, stopping beneath an arc of lemon water to look up as it hung in the air above him. He understood that if he wanted to, he could go back and watch it launch off of the table again and again because there was no such thing as linearity, there was no backwards or forwards because everything was simultaneous. It was fucked up and he hated it. He missed when his wristwatch had meaning.

He watched Ben Hanscom create a blockade with his body to protect Eddie Kaspbrak and he watched Bill Denbrough - big Bill, smaller than he thought he would be, worse interpersonal skills than he remembered him having - duck beneath something that didn't exist and he walked up close to see the tearful anger on Beverly Marsh's face and the bruises on her wrists and then he moved up to Mike Hanlon and he stood beside him and he tried again to see what he was seeing, but he couldn't, so he said:

"It's not real. This is just what _It_ does, you're the only one who knows that right now, it's just hard to remember when you're scared."

Mike's head jerked like a fly was buzzing in his ear, so Stan turned to look at him and then he leaned in closer and then closer still, coming so close that his mouth was almost against his friend's ear and he repeated himself, slower this time:

"It's not real."

And then, struck by some revelation, Mike yelled:

"It's not real!"

Stan had watched the scene play out again and again and again already and this part hadn't happened before - it had always stopped because Richie projectile vomited and ruined the ambience, but this time was different.

"It's not real!" Mike repeated, picking up a chair.

They really looked like idiots, but he supposed there was nothing he could do about that.

* * *

The first time around, he couldn't believe they had just _left him_.

Stanley stood in the dark because the rest of the world had been blocked off by the collapse of Neibolt and he stared at Eddie Kaspbrak, who wasn't quite dead yet.

He could see why they thought he was.

But not quite. 

He was just alive enough to know he was going to die alone down there.

"Stan?" Eddie asked through a mouthful of blood.

* * *

Stan spent some of his afterlife in the park three blocks from his house. 

He liked to come back to a time five years ago and sit beside Patty while she was on her lunch break because it was a perfect moment. It was a Friday and she had just eaten, she was relaxed and wearing a gray cotton dress with little blue buttons on one shoulder and the weather was just right and the wind was in her hair. He never got tired of that particular lunch break - or any of them, but that one was just right, she was content.

"They just left him there." Stan said out loud, his chin on his fists while Patty worked through a book she would give away two years from then and then wonder aloud about three years from then, forgetting she had gotten rid of it. He watched her mark her place in it with a grocery receipt.

"I need to get you a bookmark." he said, then realized he never would.

* * *

He went back to the Jade of the Orient, he watched it happen again. 

He said:

"It isn't real."

And again, Mike repeated him, so Stanley decided to follow him home. 

He discovered it was much easier to talk to him while he was asleep, he just wished Hanlon would stop trying to run away from him - he wasn't even doing anything wrong.

* * *

Bev was more receptive than the rest of them, but it wasn't quite the same - she didn't have the paranoia and hyper-vigilance that came with twenty-seven extra years in Derry. She was resilient, but she forgot her dreams the moment she woke up, which was no good for his purposes.

Richie would hear him after the deadlights, but by then it was too late.

It was never as easy as just talking - he had to make them listen and Pennywise didn't want them to.

"Sorry." Stan said, awkward, "I get the feeling I look pretty bad."

Mike sat curled up in the corner of his attic apartment with his head in his hands and he let out a hollow laugh.

It always came back to Mike, but he was pretty sure he was driving him insane.

* * *

Patty again, Friday five years ago, the gray dress, the book. 

He wanted so badly to brush her hair back from her temple that he tried it and he watched with fascination as she broke out in goosebumps, shivering and glancing warily around herself. She passed her fingers back through her hair and closed her book and got up and left.

Somehow, he ruined the moment.

He didn't know he could do that.

* * *

Beneath Neibolt, he sat beside Eddie until he died.

He could still hear Richie screaming.

* * *

Six months prior to his suicide, Stan watched himself loom over a jigsaw puzzle that had been flummoxing him for a week. Patty was slouched on his back with her chin on his shoulder and her arms hanging limply on either side of him and she said:

"You'll figure it out."

"Why are you so sure?" asked Alive Stan.

Patty turned her head and kissed him three times in a row on the cheek.

"Because you're a problem solver," she said, her hands wandering to his belt, "You never give up on puzzles."

* * *

Neibolt.

  
Eddie.

  
Richie screaming.

  
"No." said Stan.

  
They could do better than this.

* * *

Stan stood in the dark and this time everyone was dead except for Eddie, who was in the process of dying - he always took the longest, no matter how it happened. Stan turned on the spot and he looked at the pieces of the rest of his friends and he said out loud:

"That's the last time I go to Bill about this."

He stepped over an arm on his way back to another outcome.

* * *

Maybe it wasn't too late.

Stan didn't know how it was possible for a dead man to have nausea but he experienced wave after wave of it as he watched Richie levitate into the beam of the deadlights; he had seen them up close before, on the floor of Neibolt with Pennywise's mouth locked around his head - he'd been forced to stare into them and then everything had changed and he knew it would for Richie now, too, just like it had for Bev. 

He had tried every variation he could think of and he couldn't stop Pennywise from hurting Eddie - but maybe that wasn't what mattered.

Terrified, Stanley joined Richie in the deadlights.

Maybe it was as simple as telling him not to let go.

* * *

That worked.

At least until Kaspbrak died in his sleep a week later.

"For fucks sake, Eddie." said Stan, wandering back to Patty for a break; he needed some time to think and he couldn't do it while Richie was crying like that.

* * *

Patty had a love-hate relationship with horror movies. Whenever she saw an ad for one, she would say out loud that she would _not_ watch that one. Most of the time she ended up watching it months later when it turned up on a streaming channel and she would always ask him to sit with her and she would hold onto his arm and jerk at the jump scares and yelp into his shoulder and climb into his lap. 

He had never liked horror movies, he didn't like how the characters were never sensible and he didn't like the creeping feeling of familiarity that came up the back of his neck as he remembered things he would never talk about - but he liked the process of horror movies. He liked the way Patty would cling to him in the night afterwards, overcome with self-aware laughter at her own nervousness. 

"What I want to know," Patty had said one night two years ago, her body pressed to his side, "Is why ghosts never just say what they want."

"Then there would be no movie." Stan said, "If the new family moves in and the ghost walks up and says 'my body buried is under the house, little help?', then the rest of the story will just be the adults arguing while they try to build an Ikea shelf."

"So ghosts are thespians?" she asked, twirling his chest hair.

"Ghosts are thespians." 

"Maybe they have no choice but to be dramatic." she suggested, "Maybe it just takes more effort, you know, so they have to make it worth it - I think I'd be dramatic if I was a ghost."

"Would you haunt me?" Stan asked.

"I would haunt you." Patty confirmed.

"You didn't even have to think about it."

"I'm obsessed with you," she said playfully, "You're never getting away from me."

"Possessive Patty, they call her." Stan said, "Roaming the Atlanta suburbs, monitoring her law-abiding husband."

"You're so well-behaved." she agreed.

"I would like to be less well-behaved." he replied and they smiled at each other like newlyweds fifteen years in.

He couldn't stay and watch the rest and not even because it felt voyeuristic - it just hurt too much.

* * *

Stan made sure not to go back to Neibolt, just in case he changed something - he had gotten Eddie as far as the hospital, but everything after that was a tangle. He took his time following each of them but collectively they were like a bomb going off; he wondered how any of them had made it to their forties when they were objectively so terrible at taking care of themselves. 

He tried again and again, but in the beginning only Mike acknowledged him while awake.

"There's nothing in here, Rich." Mike said while Stan stared up at him, holding his gaze as he backed away.

"Pants on fire." Stan said, slouching further into the bath to reflect bitterly on how terrible his friends were at listening.

* * *

"I need to say something out loud and I need you to never repeat it." Richie said.

Stan knew that he wasn't meant to hear what Tozier had to say, but he was dead and he was curious and no one could stop him, so he sat down beside them on the bridge and he listened while Mike used every ounce of his willpower to not look his way.

* * *

"The balloons aren't my fault." Stan said while Mike laid in bed in the Derry Town House, drunk and dizzy and doing his best to ignore him and a ceiling crowded with red balloons; Uris had to knock a few away from himself, aggravated by their presence in his space, the latex squealing around him, "I'm not doing this, I swear, I don't even know why they're here."

"It'd be easier to hear you if you'd put your face on, man." Mike mumbled.

"Huh?" Stan asked, a spectral balloon stuck to his hair. 

They both screamed when it burst.

* * *

Stanley was sitting across from Beverly Marsh and she was looking at him, _really_ looking at him and he felt a thrum of excitement at the prospect of being seen because it seemed like it had been decades since anyone had met his eyes. Maybe it had been. Maybe it had only been seconds. He supposed it depended on where one was standing.

"Eddie dies in his sleep." Stan said, getting the words out before he lost his chance, knowing his window of opportunity was closing because there was cigarette smoke rising from his open wrists, the gradual warping of his reality that meant _It_ was nearby, circling around what was left of him like a hungry animal.

It turned out that Stan wasn't the only one who had stuck around after death.

"It got in, like an infection." Stan said and he didn't mean for the next part to happen, he wouldn't have done that to Bev - opening up a chasm in her chest - he wouldn't ever want her to have that look on her face, so he reached for her and he only meant to assure her, but he had no control over the next part, he didn't want to do it. 

They were both having a bad dream.

"This is a nightmare." Stan assured her, because it was the best that he could do.

* * *

"You shouldn't drink that." Stan said to Ben, but he did it anyways. 

* * *

_It_ had started following him everywhere, so Stan stopped going to see Patty, just in case. 

He had thought he had all the time there had ever been, but it turned out he didn't. 

_It_ was getting stronger, trying to find a way back, trying to finish what it started.

He watched Bev run from him in the barrens, scrambling up the hill to get away.

He needed her to understand. 

It had to be Bev - Mike was too close to the edge.

* * *

Mike was too close to the edge. 

Stan was trying to make him stop, but Hanlon was stumbling up the hospital steps towards the roof and he wouldn't look at him, he wouldn't listen to him, he was blind and bleeding and panicking and Stan had to do something. 

He wasn't sure he made the right decision, but it was the only one he could think of.

"Mike is on the roof now." Stan said.

"What?" Bill asked, grabbing him - Richie - by the shoulders. He could feel it, the heat of Bill's fingers through Richie's shirt, the press of them on his skin, something real and definite, but he couldn't control it when Richie's head flopped uselessly to the side, like he had forgotten how to make a body work. 

He had more to say, but Denbrough was gone so he just stood there trying to figure out the logistics of making someone else walk. 

"I am so fucking frustrated right now." Stan said out loud and then walked into a wall.

* * *

While Tozier was sedated, Stan went to see Mike and Bill in a last ditch effort to get the message across.

They made a fucking blanket fort and ignored him.

* * *

If Richie were a car, Stan would have deemed him a lemon because there wasn't a single part of him that was working properly. The sedatives were a factor and so were the straps holding him down but his biggest frustration was the tape on his eyes; it took the better part of an hour for him to get one of them open and when he finally did, he realized he still couldn't see because Richie didn't have his glasses on.

"Hnhg." said Stan, unable to form words through an opiate haze; he turned Richie's head but the entire world was like standing too close to a watercolour painting - Ben was just a smear of colours, he couldn't form an actual picture.

"I'm going to get a nurse." Ben said hurriedly and Stan knew that they didn't have time, so he started bucking on the bed in his fury; having a body and not being able to use it had struck him as more frustrating than being incorporeal. Flopping on the bed like a fish, Stanley felt like he was throwing a tantrum but he figured he was overdue for one by about twenty-seven years anyways.

Still, it did the trick because Ben started loosening the straps on his arms and the moment Stan was free, he tried to grab Hanscom for leverage and overshot by roughly a mile, swinging his arm like a club and bashing his friend in the temple so hard that he hit the bed rail and then the floor. Stan made it to his feet but Ben got back up and then he got in the way and Stan couldn't allow it, but he didn't mean to push him so hard - he didn't know Richie's strength.

He had a better idea of it when Hanscom collapsed to the floor in a plume of drywall.

"Sorry." Stan said, which came out as _snrghy_ , but he hoped Ben got the point as he staggered blindly from the room; he would have to deal with that later. Actually, Richie would have to deal with that later, he had other things on his mind like keeping Eddie alive - he hadn't worked this hard just for him to die in a stupid way.

Stan tried to coordinate himself but it felt like he had too much limb to work with, his legs were bending weirdly and his big, numb hands were swinging into everything he passed. He crashed into walls and door frames, but it didn't matter because he just had to get to Beverly, he was so close, if he could just get to her, it could all be over. 

If Eddie lived through tomorrow, Richie wouldn't overdose in a week. 

If Richie didn't overdose, Mike would get out of Derry alive.

If Mike got out of Derry alive, he would talk to Patty.

He just needed to get to Bev - he knew he could make her understand, he knew she was the one.

* * *

There was no _where_ or _when_ anymore.

Stan was in a field of red fescue and he could feel the wind in his hair.

He was there, _really_ there somehow, in a place they had been more than thirty years ago, repeating a moment that had happened already and hadn't happened yet and would happen eventually.

It was impossible, but he was in his own body and Richie was across from him, awash in violet light and Stan knew what he was going through, he knew what it felt like to be pulled and pulled, to be yanked through different times and places, to become one person after another after another but never himself. For a moment, they were connected in a way no one else could be, they were sharing in an impossibility, existing together in a place that was real and wasn't real. 

"But I should have stayed." Stan said out loud.

"I wish you had stayed." Richie said and suddenly Stan felt small and suddenly he felt strange and suddenly he felt light. 

"See you later, Rich." Stan said, because Richie had to leave now - it wouldn't do anyone any good if he hung around much longer because _It_ was always nearby and _It_ wanted all of them, even now. He pushed and then Richie was gone and then Stan was alone in a windy field more than thirty years ago and he was a child beneath a midnight sky and a giant shadow passed overhead, enormous and swimming and he looked up in awe of something he would never see again and he said:

"I'd like to stay."

And then he was falling and all of them were there together, the versions of them that hadn't made it to the end: the Beverly Marsh who walked into traffic and the Mike Hanlon who jumped off a roof and the Bill Denbrough who became catatonic with his grief, the Eddie Kaspbrak with a gaping tunnel in his chest, the Ben Hanscom who drowned himself and the Richie Tozier who went to bed one night and never got up again.

They told each other to hold on.

Then Stanley Uris watched the universe fall away and he wasn't there anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore


	14. Stalactite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains medical procedures, references to claustrophobia, and jokes about puppet hand jobs. Please heed all tags.

* * *

  
_"I need to say something out loud and I need you to never repeat it."_

* * *

"There's something Freudian about this whole thing." Richie said from inside of the MRI, his long bare legs sticking out and ending in blue socks pulled up too high, cap-toed with neon yellow and decorated with a repeating pattern of peeled bananas. In a seat beside the machine, Hanscom bounced his heel against the ground to contain his anxiety. Rationally, Ben knew that anyone else would have been a calmer companion but his awareness of his own misery in small spaces had compelled him to keep Richie company for the duration, "Being shoved head-first into a hole, kind of an unbirthing thing."

"I think I have to look that up." Ben said, angling for an explanation while not entirely certain he wanted one.

"Definitely do that." Richie said, tapping his big toes together and lacing his fingers over his stomach, which Ben interpreted as nervous movement, so he reached out, "Buddy, are you holding my leg?"

"Yes." Ben replied, holding his leg. His hand was clammy and Richie's leg was hairy so the experience was intimate in a way neither of them had been prepared for. He shifted his hand so there would be the barrier of a sock between them, determined to be comforting regardless of how uncomfortable it was for both of them.

"Okay." Richie replied, his face contorted inside the machine as he absorbed the fact that Hanscom's fingers could make it almost all the way around his ankle; it was just one of roughly seventy thoughts that he didn't want to sit with, so he opened his mouth and let words fall out, "Hey, so," he said, "I hear a certain someone got the shit kicked out of him by a comedian."

Ben's hand stayed where it was but he said nothing and even though Richie couldn't see him, he knew that the other man's face was full of apology that didn't belong to him.

"Sorry." Richie said through a lump in his throat, but the coils in the machine were banging around him, a rhythmic thump that drowned him out, so he repeated himself louder, "Sorry, Ben. I'm sorry, man, I uh - I didn't -" His hands parted and lifted, clenching and unclenching as though trying to grasp the words that kept dodging him.

"It's okay." Ben interrupted, squeezing Richie's ankle, his brows formed into acute and grave accents that created a point, "We don't have to talk about that."

"Yeah, no, I know, I knew you'd say that." Richie said, clearing his throat, struck by some emotion he didn't fully understand, "It's just that no one talks about anything." He didn't know where that came from, it didn't feel like something he'd say, but suddenly it felt important.

Ben leaned far forward, trying to peer into the machine until a voice came on over the speaker:

_"Mr. Hanscom, please sit down."_

Ben sat, looking towards the technician window for approval.

"You got in trouble." Richie said, his voice both choked and sing-song at the same time.

"Are you okay, Rich?" Ben asked, supporting his broken ribs with his palm when he leaned very slightly forward again as though hoping if he did it slowly, the technician wouldn't notice and wouldn't scold him again.

"I mean, I'm doing great for a guy getting a brain scan, yeah." Richie said. When the dust had settled, none of them had been able to explain themselves to the hospital staff and Richie hadn't been able to explain himself to any of his friends - the block of time between arriving at the hospital and waking up in one of the beds was filled with static. He tried to sound casual when he spoke next but he couldn't pull it off, "Is Bev okay?" 

"She's not hurt."

"That doesn't mean she's okay." 

"You were the one on the floor when they got the door opened." Ben pointed out; Richie could hear how hard Hanscom was fighting for it not to become a _thing_ and he knew Marsh would do the same, "She's okay." he thought about it for a few seconds and then he added, "We're okay. You and me."

Richie's eyes were stinging so he shut them.

"Okay." he said finally, "Yeah. Thanks, man."

"What happened yesterday, that wasn't you."

"Yeah I - uh, honestly Ben, I can't remember shit, it's all just like static -" Richie began.

"It wasn't you, it was Stan." Ben continued firmly and then they were both silent for a few seconds.

"What?" he said finally, "What, Stan? Ben, wait, what? What was Stan?" Richie asked, trying to crawl out of the MRI while the technician burst into the room.

* * *

"Twitter says you're missing." Bill said, looking down at his phone, then holding it up for Richie to see: #PrayersForTozier

"Yeah, I'm thinking I'll just put up a picture of a tombstone and tell people to write the thingie on it." Richie said, drawing his finger through the air to signify his meaning.

"An epitaph?"

"I don't need one, my allergies aren't that bad." Richie said and Bill briefly looked murderous.

"Does your muh-mother know you're okay?" Bill asked and he watched Tozier's eyes gradually widen behind his glasses until they were enormous white circles.

"Shit." he whispered.

"You didn't call her?" 

"Did you call Audra?" Richie shot back and they both stared at each other, mutually aware that the conversation could take a terrible turn if they went any further, so naturally Richie did, "Unlike Kaspbrak, I'm not married to my mother." 

"Did you hurt yourself a little with that one?" Bill asked flatly.

"What does that mean?" Richie asked, a spike of hot panic flaring in his chest; if his sternum hadn't been there, he felt like there would be a flashing siren where his heart should be. Bill was about to respond but then the door to the consultation room opened and a doctor walked in, momentarily occupied by her phone.

"Sorry," she said, lofting it up for emphasis before tucking it into her pocket, "Kids."

"Yeah, they're disgusting." Richie agreed as though that was the conversation they were having, swerving hard from anything Denbrough might have been about to say. 

"Sometimes." she agreed, sitting down behind her desk, "So Mr. Tozier, your MRI came back clear - no lesions, no sign of any strokes."

"Yeah, no stroking lately." Richie said.

"Clearly nothing wrong with your language processing." she continued without missing a beat, "But you were catatonic for the better part of a day and even a few minutes wouldn't be acceptable, so I'm not prepared to stop investigating just yet."

"Listen, I don't have great insurance." Richie said, sitting forward, placing his hands on the desk, but they were only still momentarily, traveling to a cup full of pens and picking one up, thumb clicking it several times in a row, "Can we just say I was possessed and I'll promise not to do it again?"

She peered at him, then looked back to her file.

"Funny, Mr. Hanscom said something similar." she said, sitting back while Bill and Richie forced themselves not to exchange glances, "We can look into your insurance and see what we can reasonably do but I'd encourage you to continue. It's obviously your choice, but I think a psychological evaluation -"

"That's a can of worms better left unopened. The can has botulism. In this scenario we're about to eat the botulism worms, which we shouldn't do." Richie twisted in his seat to look at Bill,"Wait, why were the worms in a can?"

"Bait shops used to put them in cans." Bill replied and Richie stared at him.

"I didn't expect you to have an answer for that - do you fish? Bill, are you a fisherman? Bill, do you catch fish this big?" Richie asked, putting his arms out wide.

"If you wave something shiny at him you might be able to get him to pay attention." Bill said to the doctor.

"If you wave an advance at him, he'll write you a downer ending." Richie added.

"Do - do you - do you wanna fight?" Bill asked.

"I want to fight this much." Richie said, his arms still out fish-wide.

"All of you surviving that collapse on Neibolt was a small miracle, I saw the pictures, it's incredible that only one of you were badly injured," she said, outpacing their attention deficit, "But it was a traumatic event and it's important to acknowledge that, the long-term impact of unaddressed trauma -"

"Is Eddie okay?" Richie interrupted and she fell silent, taking a few seconds to accept that she wasn't going to get any further; she closed Richie's file and he relaxed visibly.

"He is, to the extent that he can be under the circumstances." she said, "Your friend was right. I don't know how she knew, but Mr. Kaspbrak has blood clots in his lung - we're putting him on medication to dissolve them and with any luck we won't need to do anything more invasive than that."

Richie pretended to be interested in the floor in order to give himself time to process the information.

"So he's gonna - he's gonna make it?" Bill asked. Something about hearing the question said out loud caused a ripple of terror through Richie because he found himself picturing what it would be like if Eddie didn't make it; in an instant, he could see a thousand versions of Kaspbrak's death, vivid in his mind's eye like a montage of horror:

Eddie going into the water after them and getting hooked onto a rock while submerged, pulled to the surface by Ben just a little too late.

Eddie getting caught in the deadlights and something in his head breaking so badly that by the time they got him down, they couldn't stop him from doing what he did to himself.

Eddie being shoved onto a stalactite, Pennywise hanging him up inside the cave like a painting.

Eddie slumped against the wall, Richie being dragged away from him by the rest of his friends, but it wasn't right because -

"He's not dead." Richie said out loud and something went _crack_ and then he looked down at himself and he was covered in ink, the pen was crushed into pieces in his hand. He sat staring at the mess like a stunned child, unclear on what had just happened to him and uncertain as to how he should handle the situation he found himself in. He had the irrational urge to cry.

He looked up because Bill was in front of him, blotting at his face and neck with kleenex, his expression careful.

"Rich?" Bill asked, his efforts were only making the situation worse, the thick ink was just smearing and staining, leaving Tozier's neck and jaw streaked with purple; his hands and shirt were a lost cause.

"I swear this never happens to me." Richie replied, monotone, "I just got excited." he looked at his palms, "It looks like I jerked off Count Von Count."

"You okay?" Bill asked and his voice was so tender that Richie needed to say something terrible to counteract the embarrassment and shame rising in his chest and neck.

"Hey, do you think he goes _ah-ah-ah_ when he -"

"You should both get some rest." 

The interruption came from behind the desk and Richie leaned to look at the doctor while Bill was in front of him, wasting a fistful of tissues before finally giving up on the effort, taking the broken pen and discarding it all into the garbage.

"Sorry about your pen." Richie said and she regarded him for a long moment as though she was considering saying something more, so he cut her off at the pass, "So on a scale from one to ten, how badly did we destroy Dr. Anders' faith in humanity?"

Her face shifted into confusion.

"Who?" she asked.

"Dr. Anders." Richie repeated, but her confusion didn't clear, so he clarified, "The guy who was here all week." he looked at Bill, who was wearing an identical expression. 

"Dr. Novak has been here all week." Bill pointed out.

"No, he fixed my stitches." Richie said, glancing between them and then letting out an uneasy scoff of laughter, "Is this for the Audra comment? Are you fucking with me right now? You're fucking with me." he gestured both hands a little more aggressively than he meant to, "Dr. Anders. Come on."

"What does he look like?" Dr. Novak asked.

Initially the question pissed him off, but then Richie really thought about it and realized he couldn't actually summon any kind of description - not even his age range or hair colour, there was just a blank template where a person should have been.

"Um." Richie said, his brows knitting. As he concentrated, he realized he could distinctly remember Novak being the one that met them at the doors when the paramedics showed up with Eddie, her image superimposed over a memory he was sure he'd had twenty seconds ago - in fact, the more he thought about it, the less sure he was, "I - no, uh, right. Yeah. I'm thinking of - something else. I'm fine, I just got confused." he checked their faces and neither of them believed him, so he doubled down, "I'm just tired, my head was somewhere else."

In the hallway outside of the consultation room, Dr. Novak said:

"I'd like for you to reconsider." 

"Yeah, comedians don't really do the therapy thing while we're still funny." Richie said, "The stage is our therapy. And cocaine."

The doctor stared at him.

"I don't do cocaine." he clarified, "I mean, I did once and I caught up on all of my laundry but I also pissed myself so it was kind of counter-intuitive."

"You have ADHD." Bill said.

"You have major depression." Richie replied and Bill shrugged his entire face: _fair enough_.

"If you decide you want a referral, just call ahead, I'll have one written up for you." she said.

When they were alone, Denbrough gave him a long look.

"I'm not crazy." Richie said and Bill reached up and grasped his huge shoulders, giving them a squeeze.

"Rich, we're all crazy at this point." he said earnestly and Tozier watched him amble down the hall with his awkward John Wayne walk and he felt a powerful rush of fondness for him, so he took long enough strides that he could get one foot between Bill's and trip him.

* * *

Outside of the Derry Townhouse, the Losers sat on the steps and ate from communal containers of chicken wings and french fries. Richie sat down beside Bev, whose face was half-covered by a pair of cheap yellow aviator sunglasses; she smelled like sunscreen and bourbon and she passed the bottle his way, which he took gratefully. 

"You were right." Richie said after he swallowed down a burning mouthful and passed the bottle along and Ben hesitated, then moved it down the line without drinking from it, "About Eddie."

"I know." Bev said, biting ravenously into a drumstick, then gracelessly picking a bit of gristle out of her mouth. They were both quiet for a while and Richie stuffed a fistful of cold fries into his mouth; they were starchy and unseasoned but he had eaten things he had left overnight in the microwave, so he wasn't picky.

"I'm sorry." Richie said and she paused, then looked over at him, "For whatever happened in the hospital, I'm not trying to make excuses, I just don't know what -"

"I know." she repeated, one brow digging slightly inwards.

"You know, all of us," he inhaled, blew out a breath, so she removed her sunglasses, her expression focused, "We're all dealing with all of this - all of these - monsters. I just, I hate thinking that I turned into another of those in your life."

"Oh." Bev said softly, reaching up to touch Richie's face with both hands, "Richie, you could never scare me." she pressed her lips together in a little smile, "You're pretty much the least scary person I've ever met. Ever."

"Alright." he said.

"Like, I had a teacup yorkie for a while and it was scarier than you," she continued, her voice intentionally wheedling.

"I get it, yeah."

"I took him for walks in little sweaters because he got so cold and even in knitwear he -"

"Thanks." Richie interrupted, leaning forward to gesture for the bottle from Mike, who handed it back his way and he gave a little affectionate tug on the back of Hanlon's shirt before he took another drink, chasing it down with warm soda.

Ben was watching the wheel spin in the distance when the bottle came his way again and he shook his head.

"Will your Fitbit verbally abuse you if you drink this? Blink twice if you need help." Richie said.

"No, it broke." Ben said, flicking the device a couple of times and it flashed the word _WOW_ before sputtering out again, "It's just that the last time I drank, I snorted several lemons."

All of them gaped at him as he tried to pass the bottle elsewhere and he eventually just set it carefully on the step equidistant between them, then nodded ahead.

"We should go to the carnival." he said.

"Obligatory dart joke." Mike said through a mouthful of chicken and Richie snapped his mouth shut just as Hanlon slyly looked back over his shoulder at him: _yeah, I've got your number_.

On the walk there, Bev and Ben held hands, so Richie got between them and created a chain.

"I'm the chaperone." he said nasally.

"Then you've been doing a bad job." Bev pointed out and Ben flushed until he started sweating and she leaned forward to grin at his embarrassed face, a cigarette clenched between her teeth. 

"He's damp, you can have him back," Richie said, passing their hands to each other as they entered the fair grounds. 

They didn't get far before Bev was comandeering the group towards an overpriced ice cream stall and they all sat on the grass eating cones.

"What the fuck is that?" Richie asked, staring at Bill's orange-and-black monstrosity and Denbrough offered it out, so Richie leaned away until he had a triple chin. Denbrough brought it back to himself, shrugged and then bit into it, sending all of them into convulsive shivers.

"You're a monster." Ben said softly.

"What?" Bill asked, "It's not my fault your teeth are fragile - eat soft serve, w-weaklings."

"You're so goddamn weird." Mike laughed into the bourbon.

"Me?" Bill asked, spilling orange down his chin, so Bev stuck a napkin to it and he used it to clean himself up, "I did not - did not - keep a _pitcher_ -"

"It was more like a carafe, like a small -"

"Oh, a carafe, we're guh-getting into semantics about the container in which you kept -"

"A small decanter." Mike continued.

"- that was like half a litre, I don't care what s-synonym you use, it was like half a litre of psychedelics, how much did you think you were gonna -"

A balloon burst at the dart stall and all of them jumped; Ben jolted so hard that he crushed his cone to dust and the remnants of his ice cream sat balanced on the circle of his thumb and index finger. 

"I think I'm ready to walk." Mike said stiffly and they shuffled away from the area, wandering through the flashing lights and the low ebb of chaos. Everyone except Bill decided to get on the wheel, he wandered away from it to avoid getting too close to where the funhouse had been, its entryway covered over with a tarp and flowers laying on the ramp leading up to it. As he wandered aimlessly, he realized that there was no longer a single place in Derry that was sacred for them anymore.

On the wheel, Richie sat across from Mike as they were slowly raised above the town.

"Feels like it's been forever since we were conscious around each other." Richie said; thinking about it, he hadn't had a chance to talk to Hanlon since the last time they'd been at the carnival and he found himself staring hard at his friend, watching the red light wash over him, "Mike?"

"Yeah?"

Richie put his elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands together.

"Mike, I feel like I might have said something."

"You say a lot of things, Rich."

"That's true, but I mean a specific thing."

"What specific thing do you feel like you might have said?"

Richie sat with his tongue poking out slightly between his teeth, in an awkward position.

"I don't know." he said finally.

"You don't know what specific thing you feel like you might have said."

"Yeah. No. Sort of. Like, I mean last time we were here. Like, when we were on the bridge. Like, when I was really drunk."

Something swept over Hanlon's face, an instant of recognition that made Richie's stomach flip.

"What did I tell you, Mike?" he asked quietly.

They held each others' gaze for a long time.

"Don't know what you mean." Mike said finally, looking out towards the lights of Derry, watching the library clock tower as the lights shifted to violet on their skin. 

Afterwards, they wandered together into a gift shop and Richie flexed in front of a warped mirror, making himself short and wide, then tall and rail thin, bobbing up and down on the spot while the cashier watched him with a dead expression. Mike stood by a merchandise carousel and turned a bookmark over in his hands, dark leather with a detailed etching of a bird: Spinus Tristis. He bought it and slipped it into his pocket, moving behind Richie and both of them barked with laughter as his face stretched wide in the reflection.

They found a spot to sit and watched the others play whack-a-mole, Bev was hammering the machine with all of her strength, audible thumps that rang the metal housing around the game.

"Hey Rich." Mike said and Richie glanced over at him and he paused for a second before he said: "There's nothing wrong with you."

Richie laughed.

"Yeah? Dr. Novak wanted to give me a referral for therapy, so," Richie gestured at Hanlon with finger guns, clicking his tongue.

"Yeah, you might need therapy," he ventured, "but there's nothing wrong with you."

The words took a while to sink in but when they did, Richie had to look anywhere else, anywhere in the world except directly at Mike Hanlon. They were quiet while Bill failed at the game and they watched as Ben won a deformed stuffed rabbit, which he handed bashfully to Bev. 

Eventually Mike turned his way.

"Who's Dr. Novak?" he asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore


	15. Daisy Dress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains graphic descriptions of injuries, references to medical abuse and abuse via Munchausen by proxy, anyone with claustrophobia or phobias about uncleanliness or insects should proceed with caution as all of them are kind of a thing. As usual, please heed the tags.

Bill Denbrough's hands were careful; the curve of his palm and the length of his thumb were placed delicately against the slope of Eddie's right cheekbone to pull the skin taut while his right hand manoeuvred a razor through the foam on his face. In the silence of the room, the metal rasped slightly against the salt-and-pepper stubble that had grown on his jaw and the plastic of the disposable shaver clicked against the bowl of warm water he had set on a rolling table when he cleaned it off after each swipe.

Mike felt as though he shouldn't have been watching, like he was intruding on a private moment because there was something intimate about the way Bill carefully tilted Eddie's head back so he could reach the hard narrow line of his jaw and the soft underside of his chin. From his profile, he could see that Bill's face was flexed in concentration: eyebrows digging in, eyes narrowed, jaw jutted out. It made him look like a stubborn teenager, which made Hanlon realize that he had never seen Bill become one and the thought caused a hollow feeling in his chest that was rapidly filled with a sensation like electric sparks because Denbrough was speaking softly, he said:

"I feel like I shu-shuh- _should_ go against the grain just to see if you'll sit up and yell at me." he cleaned the razor, _click-click_ and then swiped his thumb over the bare spot he had created on Eddie's face to test it. In the moment, Mike felt that if he opened his mouth, fireflies would emerge, as though there were blazing lights inside of him that were fluttering towards his head. He had spent so many years picturing the way his friend's faces would move, wondering if their expressions would be mirrors of what they used to be and the answer was a resounding _yes_ , because he could see the Bill he remembered in his satisfied little smile. Mike cleared his throat from the doorway, certain that he shouldn't be a silent observer any longer and Bill looked his way.

"Morning." Bill said tiredly and Mike squinted at him, "What?"

"Why do I remember you being bruised on the other eye?" Mike asked and Bill touched the shiner on the right side of his face, "Bev did that?"

"Bev did that." Bill agreed, leaning in to continue what he had been doing, moving the razor down the front of Eddie's neck to get the stray hairs, "I startled her."

"I feel like that takes a lot of effort." 

Bill thought about the dark woods and the dead body at her feet.

"It takes a lot of effort." he agreed solemnly, eyes pulling to Mike as he sat down on the other side of Eddie, looking at his tired face and gesturing with the razor, "Want me to do you next?" 

Hanlon touched his chin, fingers skidding over the grit on it and then Bill's gaze fell to the bandage on his arm, openly inspecting it; the attention made Hanlon want to go stand in a corner, but he was still avoiding those.

"It's okay." Mike said, catching it before he could ask.

"You got stabbed." Bill pointed out: _It's objectively not okay._

"A little." 

"I don't think there's such a thing as a little stabbing."

"I don't know." Mike said doubtfully, looking pointedly at Eddie.

"By that, you're saying that Eddie received a big stabbing?" Bill asked.

"I mean -" Hanlon gestured, indicating all of Kaspbrak.

"His cheek was stabbed, his chest was impaled." 

"Impaling is stabbing with the gas to the floor."

Bill set the razor down with the air of a disappointed middle school English teacher and Mike had to force himself not to smile, suddenly understanding Richie more than ever.

"You can't use those interchangeably. The weapon has to be long to impale."

"The knife was pretty long."

"Not long enough to impale."

"It seemed pretty long in the moment."

"So then it was a big stabbing?"

"So then you agree that there are little stabbings."

"You can impale and stab with a long weapon, you can stab but you can't impale with a short one."

"But you can pierce with a short one."

Bill thought about it.

"Yes." he said slowly.

"Piercing is a synonym for impaling." Mike continued and Denbrough's face screwed up into an imitation of a raisin, then he picked up the can of shaving cream and sprayed mentholated foam at Hanlon.

"This looks kinky." Richie said, entering the room with one arm occupied by coffee and the other one occupied by Bev, who had linked with him like they were a paper chain.

"Bill says Eddie didn't get stabbed." said Mike, intentionally obtuse while he swiped shaving cream off his shirt.

"I said he got stabbed in the face, not in the chest." Bill protested.

"But you also said long weapons can stab and impale." 

"They can, but Eddie was impaled." Bill insisted.

"At what point does a stabbing become an impaling?" Bev asked while Bill vibrated with frustration, "Is it stabbing in the first few inches? What's the standard depth for a stab?"

"What about 'puncture'?" Richie asked.

"What about 'puncture'?" Denbrough asked, aggrieved.

"Well," Richie said, fighting down the nausea that the conversation was causing in favour of infuriating Denbrough, willing to be hurt if it would be funny, "Both wounds are punctures."

Everyone was quiet for a while, thoughtful.

"I guess." Bill said finally, throwing his hands in the air and a cup of coffee was pushed into one of them by Bev.

"Didn't you burn that dress?" Richie asked. He had been awake for two hours and was only just beginning to become aware of the world around him; Bev turned to look at him, then looked down at her cheap Derry daisy dress, then back to him, then over to Mike, to Bill, then back to him. She shook her head, not sure they should be saying it out loud.

"Why would Bev burn her dress?" Mike asked and Bev widened her eyes at Richie: _fix it_. Mike knew they had taken care of the problem of Henry Bowers, but none of them especially wanted to start answering questions about it, intent on keeping the events of that night between the three of them.

"Because it is terrible." Richie said woodenly, widening his eyes back at Bev: _good_? She shrugged her face: _eh._

"You should be a lot better at roasting people with what you do for a living." Mike pointed out, reaching for his phone as it began to vibrate in his shirt pocket while Richie moved closer to Bev.

"Bold of you to assume I make a living." Richie replied, frowning while he examined the pattern on her dress. He touched the sleeve of it as though he had to assure himself that it was real and as he did, he thought about standing beside her in the dark of the barrens, both of them wet and filthy and shivering from the Kenduskeag, avoiding each other's eyes when they heard a distant but distinct _whack_. 

Staring at the dress, he remembered fire crawling over the material, but even as he pictured it, he began to doubt it - maybe it had been a dress with stripes? He could suddenly imagine that as well. When he looked up again, Bev was staring at him with an expression so intense that he immediately withdrew his hand from her sleeve and for a moment it seemed like she was going to say something, except Mike stood up from his seat so fast that it toppled backwards, his phone to his ear as he supported himself on the wall with his free hand.

"Mike?" Bill asked as Hanlon watched the bruise flip from side to side on Denbrough's face, flickering from one eye to the other like it was set to his heartbeat: left eye, right eye, left eye, right eye, "Mike, are you okay?"

On the other end of the line a wavering voice whispered: 

_"I can't get out, I can't get out -"_

Mike lowered the phone from his face, looking towards the bed, to where Kaspbrak laid in a chemical coma.

"It's Eddie." he said.

"What's Eddie?" Richie asked, not understanding, "Who's on the phone, Mike?"

Mike held it out, repeating himself, his voice shaking:

"It's Eddie."

* * *

_"Stan?"_

* * *

"Hey, hey, look at me."

It took everything he had left for Eddie Kaspbrak to open his eyes but he couldn't lift his head, so all he could see were reasonable brown shoes until Stanley Uris crouched in front of him, cocking his head to the side and squinting so the wrinkles he created in his nose would push his glasses back up. 

"No," Stan said finally, shaking his head, "I don't think this is going to work. We have to try again."

"Stan?" Eddie asked, his voice thick with blood.

"Yeah." Stan said, his voice softening a little.

"Man, you picked a bad time to wake me." Eddie said, then he died again.

* * *

When Eddie opened his eyes, he was staring at a dented wooden sign hanging lopsided on a single bent nail above the door of his childhood bedroom and in brown cursive it said: Home Is Where The Heart Is. He remembered it had appeared there one day after he had gotten home late for dinner and it hung so low that he hadn't been able to close his door anymore. He'd tried to get rid of it but he had been too short to reach and when he had dragged a kitchen chair into the doorway to get to it, his mother had seen him standing on it and had shrieked as though she had been shot before approaching him with her arms outstretched, her steps slow and measured like he was at risk of falling to his death if she made one wrong move.

"Eddie baby," she had said in a wavering voice while he stood on the seat with his hands still in the air, his fingers an inch below the hanging sign, "Don't worry, mama will help you down."

Afterwards, she held him in a hug so tight for so long that he started to feel dizzy.

"I just wanted you to have a reminder," she said tearfully, her arms around him like a harness, "Of where you're safe."

He hadn't tried to take it down again, so his bedroom door was always left slightly ajar and sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and see the sign swinging between the door and the frame like a metronome: _home is where the heart is, home is where the heart is, home is where the heart is._

Eddie sat up on the side of the bed and stared at the light beyond the door for a while before he looked down at himself: he was dressed in the clothes he would go to work in, so he habitually reached for his watch on the side table and fumbled it onto the ground when searing pain shot through his hand. By the time he got the lamp turned on it was over and a red fissure pulsed in the middle of his palm like molten magma, but he felt no panic, just confusion. 

He picked up his watch from the ground and when he turned it over, the face was completely blank and the big and little hands and all of the numbers were scattered across the floor, having sunk into the wood like they had been branded onto it.

"Well that's fucked." said Eddie, stepping delicately over the spilled numbers on his way to the door, peering out into the hallway of the home he grew up in. Everything was brown-toned and smelled like artificial lemon, the acrid cleaner that came in an industrial-sized pump container and sat beneath the kitchen sink where the doors were locked together with a plastic safety tie. 

"It's for your own good." Sonia Kaspbrak had said as she pulled the lock shut, the plastic teeth clicking together while he nodded gravely and let her believe he had never figured out how to open them to get band-aids and ointment for the scraped knees he never told her about.

Standing in the kitchen with its dim yellow paint, he stared at the space where the phone used to be; the cradle was still on the wall but the receiver had been unplugged and hidden somewhere, just in case a stranger called. 

When he turned towards the counter, a glass stood by the sink, filled to the lip with the same strawberry smoothie that had made him sick years ago, so he picked it up and overturned it but pills clattered out into the basin, plugging and filling the drain, covering the bottom of it, a rising and growing colourful pile endlessly rushing from the cup until it was overflowing onto the floor and he tossed the glass away, stepping back before any of them could touch his shoes. He backed up until he was in the hallway again, his heart beating hard in his chest and when he turned towards the living room doorway, a mouldy wooden sign hung in his face that said: **Home Is Where The Heart Is** , so he slapped it as hard as he could and ducked beneath it with a yip of terror, frantically rubbing his hand onto his suit jacket, leaving a streak of green-gray fuzz. 

He needed a new jacket. 

He needed a new hand. 

He pulled off the layer and tossed it away but his skin still felt like it was crawling as he passed the snowy screen of a tube television on his way to the window. He reached out for the drawn curtains and when his fingers brushed the fabric he felt air down the back of his neck and reflexively jolted back into the television so hard that he bent the rabbit ears with his elbow while he swiped frantically at the nape of his neck. Behind him, the screen flared purple and tinny music began to filter through the weak speakers and Eddie Kaspbrak was suddenly so inexplicably infuriated by it that he put his foot through the screen and yelled:

"Fuck Toto!"

He immediately regretted his lack of impulse control because the television was lodged on his foot and he dragged it halfway across the room before he could get out of it, falling into a recliner to stare at the hole in the screen, suddenly exhausted. When he thought about it, every part of him was uncomfortable: his eyes were burning and his chest was throbbing and there was a spot on the back of his hand that was aching fiercely. 

"I'm dreaming." he said out loud, his voice cracking, "I know I'm dreaming. I know that's what this is, this is my brain, just fucking -" he gestured at nothing with three fingers, "- _fucking_ with me. And you know what?" he sat up in the chair, gaining some confidence and speaking to the hole in the television screen, "It's not gonna work. Because I know all about lucid dreaming, yeah, because I did sleep studies, I did _six_ of them, I know this shit!" he nodded to himself, his bottom jaw jutted as he prodded himself in the chest, sitting forward in the seat, unsure who he was yelling at, but compelled to talk, "And since I know I'm dreaming, that means I get to call the shots!"

Eddie was aware of his heartbeat in the lengthy silence that followed and then the television made a rude sputtering noise as though it was blowing a wet raspberry at him before a torrent of burying beetles began to spill out of the hole he had kicked in it. 

"O fuck." he said.

The insects were being ejected with such force that they hit his knees with little _thwacks_ and he scrambled out of the seat, exoskeletons crunching and smashing under his shoes as they frantically scattered in every direction. He hopped and jogged to the curtains and threw them open and behind them was a wall where a window had been drawn on with red sharpie and above it in runny wet letters it said: HOME.

When he turned, the floor was a moving blanket of insects and they were starting to climb the walls so he stumbled out of the room, kicking up sheaves of them as he went, launching into the hallway and swatting at himself because it felt like they were everywhere, they were up his legs and down his arms and in his skin, he was going to have them embedded in him, they were going to make a home inside of him and he was going to have to change his name to fucking _Gregor_. He didn't want to be named Gregor.

He planted his palms against his eyes and he said:

"I'm dreaming, this is a dream, I'm dreaming." he slapped his hands against his forehead and he said, "Wake up. Wake up, Kaspbrak!" and when he looked up again, all of the doors were gone and he was in a hallway with nothing in it, a corridor of blank brown walls stretching endlessly in either direction, so he took a right and he walked, then he jogged, then he ran, and ran, and kept running until his lungs were burning and when he laid on the ground to catch his breath, he began to cry. He knew it was ugly, a grown man splayed out on the floor, wailing until he couldn't breathe, but he was tired, he was more tired than he had ever been in his life, he was tired and he wanted to cry and he was going to and no one could fucking stop him.

"I can't get out," he said, choking on his tears, his arms crossed over his chest as he rocked gently on the floor, "I can't get out, I can't get out." the burn in his chest was growing to an inferno and the hallway was narrowing, the walls were pressing in towards him, closer and closer until they were touching him and he was pinned in place and they kept going until his lungs were seizing and collapsing like popped balloons and he croaked out the words: " _I can't_ -"

Then Eddie looked up and the ceiling stared right back at him before the walls took him by the shoulders and shook him and a voice said:

" _Breathe_."

He clawed at his chest and throat as he fought the pressure bearing down on his chest.

_"Just breathe."_

His throat creaked as he tried to pull in air, a noise like a rusty hinge, his feet skidding against the ground as body convulsed with the effort.

" _Breathe you stubborn fuck!"_

The walls fell away and the ceiling cracked open and Eddie pulled in a ragged breath around the tubes, his vision taking its time to adjust to the light and when it did, Richie Tozier stared hard at him from the end of the bed, his mouth pinned into a straight line as he compressed the explosive urge to swear again, the maddening need to say _fuck you_ and leave the room, and the impulsive urge to run to his car and leave Derry and leave Maine and never come back again.

Instead, he sank to his knees on the hospital floor and softly said:

"Okay," he rested his head on the foot board and added, "Thanks, I think we got it this time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still here.  
> Yell at me on twitter @BoWritesMore


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